God is for God

“to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved.” + Ephesians 1:6

In my previous blog (Sons, Through the Son) I talked about verse five in Ephesians chapter one. I discussed two driving forces of God’s purpose for adopting us into His family – His love and His will.

The following verse, verse six is not a separate thought from verse 5, but it is actually part of the same sentence as verse five. Verse six is a continuation of verse five. So I guess you could say this blog post is a continuation of the previous one.

From verse five, in the last blog, I explained how the motivation for God’s predestining to adopt us is His love and will. But if we question further God’s motivation, verse six answers further.

So why did God do everything He did in verse five for us? For the praise of His glorious grace. For His fame. For His glory. For His renown among the nations. To display His grace toward His elect, and His glory in His choosing.

In adopting us, God’s glorious grace is displayed and praised. Therefore God’s love and will, work for His own praise. God is for God. God is all about God. God does what He does for His praise. God’s objective in salvation is His praise. His glory and His praise is the thing God is most passionate about and concerned with.

This is incredibly good for us since God’s adoption of sinners into His family brings Him and displays His glory and grace. Therefore it is for our good that God is first and foremost for Himself. Or God’s passion for His own glory results in our good – the secure good of the elect.

And it is from God’s grace that we even get good from God – for we deserve none of it. The only thing that God owes us is wrath and judgment. The fact that we get anything else but that is grace. In Christ we have received grace upon grace.

There is something more incredible here. Look closely at verse six. That which God is praised for (His glorious grace) is that which we have received (with which He has blessed us)! How is this even possible? Jesus makes it possible – “with which He has blessed us in the Beloved” – or in Christ. So it is in Christ that we have received this grace.

When Jesus hung on the cross suffering for His bride this grace is among the many blessings He purchased for us there.

He is glorious. He is to be praised.