In the blog post last week, I mentioned how Ephesians 1:3-14 is one long sentence in Greek. When the Apostle Paul wrote, or perhaps dictated, this section, it’s like he didn’t take a breath or pause. The words flowed like a rushing river of praise. Paul used words like “chose us, predestined, adoption” with confidence that the Ephesians comprehended what he meant. We have already noted the lengthy time he was in Ephesus and the teaching platform he used to expound the gospel. Thus, words that sometimes cause us theological differences and debates were understood by those in Ephesus and the surrounding churches.
John R. W. Stott referred to Ephesians 1:3-14 as “the ‘praise’ half (of chapter 1, where) Paul blesses God that he has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing . . ., while in the ‘prayer’ half he asks that God will open our eyes to grasp the fullness of this blessing (1:15-2:10).”[1] As we enter into these significant verses, my prayer for us is the same as Paul’s prayer in 1:18, that “the eyes of (our) understanding be enlightened.”
As we briefly reflect on verses 4-6, let’s remember these verses flow from the three-fold blessings Paul named in 1:3. God the Father whom we praise, “has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”[2]
Thus, the manifestations of divine grace named in 1:4-6 flow from the eternal and never-ending blessings of God in the fullness of His personhood as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The blessings revealed in each of these verses lay the foundation for our confidence in the eternal love of God.
The blessings begin with the fact that God “chose us” in His Son Jesus “before the foundation of the world.” They began with divine election; that is, God freely chooses for the sake of His glory. The continuation of the verse shows that the purpose of divine election is “that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.” This is not a hyper-Calvinism of double predestination.[3] This is God’s eternal purpose in His only begotten Son that “in Him” there be the way of living “holy and without blame before Him in love.”
For Arminian Wesleyans and Pentecostals, the focus of divine election is in Jesus Christ. Noel Brooks quotes from Forster and Marston in their God’s Strategy in Human History, “We are chosen in Christ. This does not mean that we were chosen to be put into Christ (Brooks bold). It does not mean that God chose us to make us repent but left others unrepentant! It means that as we repented and were born again into the body of Christ, we partake of His chosenness. He is chosen, and we are chosen in Him.”[4]
It is important to remember that in Ephesians Paul is writing to people who have heard the gospel message, by grace have repented of their sins, believed in the gospel, and are now incorporated by faith into the body of Christ. Paul is reminding them of the confidence they can have of their eternal salvation “in Christ.”
Ephesians 1:4 stands against a watered-down form of the gospel which promotes belief without repentance. Dietrich Bonhoeffer called this “cheap grace” where the transforming power of the gospel is absent in the life of a person.[5] The apostle Paul clearly preached what Jesus preached, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel,” and “most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”[6]
The kingdom of God is the sphere of God’s holy and righteous reign. It is here that Paul connected election, God’s prerogative to choose how He would demonstrate His holy love in the world, with God’s election of Israel as an instrument of His love, truth, and grace to the nations. Just as Israel was chosen totally from God’s grace (Deuteronomy 7:6-8) and not by their own merit, so now in Christ, God has extended that election beyond ethnic Israel to “whoever will” shall be saved (Romans 1:16; John 3:17; 10:9; 2 Timothy 1:9).
Intellectually, we may not comprehend what God’s grace is doing in our lives when we “repent and believe the gospel.” But by grace, we discern that repentance means we have made a conscious decision to live differently than we did prior to conversion. It may take us time to change habits, to learn the truths of God’s Word, but God’s grace is active in our lives, leading us to live “holy and without blame before Him in love” (Ephesians 1:4). This is why discipleship in the body of Christ is so important. It takes “the church” to grow in the grace and knowledge of God. We have become members of Christ’s body, connected to people on the same grace-filled journey of the blessings of God.
In verse 4, I draw your attention to two words. First, we are called to live “without blame.” The word amomos was used in the Old Testament to refer to perfect lambs without blemish used in the daily sacrifices. This is why Paul in Romans 12:1 says, “by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”
The second word is “love” at the end of verse 4. The command to live “holy and blameless” is not a rigid legalism where we are condemning ourselves and others. Rather, it is an invitation to live “holy and blameless” in His love. It is eternal love, the very nature of God, that brings about election “before the foundation of the world.” It is that love that reaches to us through the gospel. It is that same love that empowers us to live to the praise of His glory each day of our lives, being transformed by the Holy Spirit into the image of Christ “from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Ephesians 1:5 picks up the election theme of verse 4 with the word “predestination.” I refer you to footnote 3 below for more general information on this theologically loaded word. It, like “election,” is a mystery known in the loving will and purposes of God in eternity. With this word, here and in Ephesians 1:11; Romans 8:29, 30, we must confess that we believe in predestination because it is taught in the Bible. But it is important to note what is meant by that word by Paul and how we understand it.
After you have looked at footnote 3, come back to Ephesians 1:5 and read what Paul said about predestination. He did not say we are predestined to eternal life and others to damnation. He said we are predestined “to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself.” The focus shifts to Jesus Christ and the “good pleasure of His will” that is rooted in eternity to redeem lost humanity. Paul’s use of adoption relates to the then well-known Roman practice that someone totally outside the natural family could be brought into the family with all rights and privileges of the natural children. This verse hints at Romans 8:12-17 on adoption as sons of God and hints at Ephesians 2 and 3 and the mystery of God’s purposes in uniting Jew and Gentile as “one new man” as His witness on the earth.
Finally, Ephesians 1:6 affirms that all of this is “to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.” Our English translations rightfully turn a Greek participle into the noun “Beloved,” referring to Jesus. It is Jesus who is beloved of the Father and who has accomplished the divine will regarding redemption and the ultimate restoration of all things (Acts 3:21). This section closes with praise “of the glory of His grace.” It is grace, amazing grace, born from the very heart of God’s eternal love, that freely seeks to redeem lost humanity.
Wesley, and the IPHC, follow in the “order of the work of grace . . . found abundantly in the ancient ecumenical tradition.” There is prevenient grace by which God “attends us and awakens our attentiveness” of God’s existence and our need for salvation. There is convicting grace that moves us to repentance. Then there is justifying grace where “we are saved from the guilt of sin and restored to the favor of God.” There follows sanctifying grace where “we are saved from the root of sin and restored to the renewed image of God.” [7] Notice it is all of grace! It is not irresistible grace. Our free will is not abolished. But it is God’s amazing grace inviting us to open our hearts to mysteries we do not fully intellectually understand or control. But by grace inspired faith, we say “Yes” to God’s love, we experience what it is to be held in the arms of Jesus, the one who is Beloved for our sake.
A final note about the assurance of our salvation. In Christ and His shed blood, we can truly trust in His saving grace. Such grace brings about repentance and an inward desire to live for the praise of His glory. We don’t have to live with uncertainty or fear that God will reject us. We can trust in His provision in Jesus Christ and in times of temptation, “come boldly to the throne of grace to obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:14-16).
We should not be presumptuous about God’s mercy and grace. It doesn’t mean that we cannot turn away from God, reject His truth, compromise His Word, even apostatize. Our freedom to “choose this day,” is a freedom given by grace to know what we should choose that brings glory to Christ.
[1] John R.W. Stott, The Message of Ephesians, (Downers Grove, Ill: Academic, InterVarsity Press, revised edition, 2020) 15.
[2] https://iphc.org/gso/2025/01/15/we-are-blessed-in-christ-ephesians-11-3/.
[3] Though Calvin taught double predestination, that is, from eternity God has predetermined who will be saved and who will be lost, today this teaching is not held by most in the Reformed tradition. The IPHC is Arminian Wesleyan and do not hold that God has predestined some to eternal life and others to eternal damnation. As Wesleyans, we hold, as do Calvinist, that everything we receive from God is by grace. Though we have free will, we are not able on our own free will to save ourselves. It is through grace that we hear the message of the Bible that we are sinners, through grace we discern the truth of our spiritually dead condition, and through grace we see the atonement for our sins through Christ and through grace we repent and believe in the gospel. Even Wesley acknowledged that there was but a “hair’s breadth” (Wesley’s words) between him and Calvin, mainly related to double predestination. For those interested in more reading and details in this area of election and predestination from an Arminian Wesleyan viewpoint, I point you towards Thomas C. Oden, John Wesley’s Teachings: Volume 2: Christ and Salvation, pages 137-190; Roger E. Olson, Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities; Roger E. Olson, Against Calvinism; Mildred Bangs Wynkoop, Foundations of Wesleyan-Arminian Theology (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press, 1967); Noel Brooks, Ephesians Outlined and Unfolded, pages 19-24.
[4] Brooks, Ephesians Outlined and Unfolded, page 21, quoting Roger T. Forster and V. Paul Marston, God’s Strategy in Human History, (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany House Publishers,1973) pp. 100-103, 117-149, 178-208.
[5] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (
[6] Mark 1:15; John 3:3.
[7] Thomas O. Oden, op. cit., page 142-144. Ecumenical is used in the sense that the church fathers of the first centuries of the Christian era agreed on this.
