Ephesians 1

Quest. How does Christ redeem us? Resp. By his own precious blood (Ephesians 1:7): In whom we have redemption through his blood. Among the Romans he was said to redeem another, that laid down a price equivalent for the ransom of the prisoner.

After the Lord had spoken to them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. (Ephesians 1:20) He raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand, far above all principality, and power, and every name that is named. Question.

Christ taking our flesh, has made us nearer to himself than the angels. The angels are his friends, believers are flesh of his flesh; his members (Ephesians 5:30; Ephesians 1:23). And the same glory which is put upon Christ's human nature, shall be put upon believers.

3. Christ died that he might make good his last will and testament with his blood: There were many legacies which Christ bequeathed to believers, which had been all null and void had not he died, and by his death confirmed the will, (Hebrews 9:17) A testament is in force after m…

Verba Dei sunt opera, Luther: God puts forth infinite power in calling home a sinner to himself: He does not only put forth his voice, but his arm. The Apostle speaks of the [Greek text], the exceeding greatness of his power he exercises towards them that believe (Ephesians 1:19…

Use 3. of Comfort. As God is a Spirit, so the reward that he gives is spiritual; that is the excellency of it; as the chief blessings he gives us in this life are spiritual blessings (Ephesians 1:3), not gold and silver; he gives Christ, his love; he fills us with grace; so the…

It was said, "Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated." We are not elected for holiness, but to holiness (Ephesians 1:3). If we are not justified for our faith, much less elected for our faith; but we are not justified for it.

It sets heaven and earth against us: While we choose this bramble to rule, fire comes out of the bramble to devour us. 2. How are all believers bound to Jesus Christ, who has freed them from that misery to which sin has exposed them (Ephesians 1:7). In whom we have redemption th…

Every gracious soul (of whatever sex) lays claim to adoption, and has an interest in God as a Father: You shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. Position 3. Adoption is an act of pure grace (Ephesians 1:5): Having predestinated us to the adoption of children, ac…

2. The power of God is seen in the conversion of souls. Surely a mighty power went to raise Christ from the grave, [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] (Ephesians 1:20). The same power goes to draw a sinner to God, as drew Christ out of the grave to Heaven.

Quest. What is the end of our Justification? Resp. The end is, 1. That God may inherit praise (Ephesians 1:6). To the praise of the glory of his grace. Hereby God raises the everlasting trophies of his own honor: How will the justified sinner proclaim the love of God, and make h…

Two things are chiefly to be regarded in obedience, the principle and the end: a child of God, though he shoots short in his obedience, yet he takes a right aim. 5. Obedience must be in and through Christ (Ephesians 1:6). He has accepted us in the Beloved.

In the text we are kept by the power of God to salvation; every person in the Trinity has a hand in making a believer persevere. God the Father establishes (2 Corinthians 1:21), God the Son confirms (1 Corinthians 1:8), God the Holy Ghost seals (Ephesians 1:13), so that it is th…

God will see the faith, and pass by the failing: The gospel remits something of the severity of the moral law. 3. Wherein our personal obedience comes short, God will be pleased to accept us in our surety (Ephesians 1:6). He has accepted us, [reconstructed: in the Beloved], in h…

Every link in the golden chain of salvation is wrought and interwoven with free grace. Election is free (Ephesians 1:4): He has chosen us in him, [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], according to the good pleasure of his will. Justification is free (Romans 3:24): Being justified freely…

So faith in every duty lays its hand upon the head of Christ. His blood does expiate the guilt, and the sweet odors of his intercession perfume our works of obedience (Ephesians 1:6). He has made us accepted in the Beloved.

Is it not with believers? And have not they coalition and union with Christ; Christ is the head, they are the body (Ephesians 1:23). This is a near union, much like that union between God the Father and Christ (John 17:21).

But there is little comfort in this; for so God is Father to the devils by creation, but he that made them will not save them. 2. God is a Father by election, having chosen a certain number to be his children, whom he will entail heaven upon; Ephesians 1:4. [in non-Latin alphabe…

7. & ult. When we read the Holy Scriptures, let us look up to God for a blessing. Beg the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, that we may see the [⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩], the deep things of God (Ephesians 1:17). Pray to God, that the same Spirit that wrote the Scripture, would…

Every link in the chain of salvation, is wrought and interwoven with free grace. Election is free (Ephesians 1:4): He has chosen us in him [illegible], according to the good pleasure of his will. Justification is free (Romans 3:24): Being justified freely by his grace.

But why must this silver thread of faith run through the whole work of obedience? Answer. Because faith looks at Christ in every duty, it touches the hem of his garment, and through Christ both the person and the offering are accepted (Ephesians 1:6). 2. We do God's will accepta…

1. The new creature is a work of divine power; so much it imports, because it is a creation. The same power which raised Christ from the grave goes to the production of the new creature (Ephesians 1:20). It is a work of greater power to produce the new creature, than to make a w…

To understand this, we must know that God, to help our faith (which, as I said before, is distinguished from sight as we now speak of it), grants a threefold light to his people, to add assurance and joy to their faith, which is to faith as a backing of steel to a bow to strengt…

and this, man does by praising God, and giving thanks unto him, who is the Author of all blessings. So Paul says, Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly things in Christ: Ephesians 1:3: beginning his…

True indeed they feel the power of God, namely, as he is an almighty judge condemning them; but they feel not the power of an almighty father: this is the point whereof we must endeavor to have experience in ourselves. Paul prays that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the father…

Labour that your persons may be in Christ.—We are accepted in him. Ephesians 1. 6. Origen, Chrysostom, and Peter Martyr affirm that the best works not springing from a root of faith are lost.

2. There is unity; a righteous man is one with Christ, as the members are one with the head (Ephesians 1:22-23). Then surely the righteous must needs have a surpassing dignity.

But by regeneration, this disordered soul is set right again; sanctification being the rectifying and due framing — or as the Scripture phrases it, the renewal of the soul after the image of God (Ephesians 4:24) — in which self-dependence is removed by faith, self-love by the lo…

Election sent you not into this world to have a great name (perhaps God will load it) nor to be rich, or to have power, but to work you for this self-same thing; and if you see that plow a going (though it makes deep furrows on your back, indeed your heart) yet so, that this see…

So (Psalm 138:8) Forsake not the works of your own hands, that is, this double workmanship of yours of the first, and then added to that, of the second creation which he urges thereby to move him to perfect the work begun, and to be merciful to him forever, in the former part of…

In the saints' prayers (as Psalm 51) it's called even as to further degrees of this work, or restoring of lost degrees, creating of a clean heart, and renewing a right spirit within; and many more the like expressions there are, which show not only man's impotency and inability…

Take two or three scriptures to confirm this. 1. That (Ephesians 1:20-21) he has set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principalities and powers, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world but also in that which is…

But if this be not, debate, dispute, and question as you will about it, whatever may be afterwards, you have no evidence for the time of your election. 2. Where there is real holiness, or a real study and endeavor to be holy and more holy, it is an evidence of election, and of a…

So that to be made the righteousness of God is to be justified, and to be justified is to be made friends with, or to be reconciled to God; and that not by working a moral change; but upon the account of Christ's satisfaction, bringing us into friendship with God. So, Ephesians…

I may have it to say, I am here, Lord, even in Christ, and in His Righteousness; this is the ground of his plea, having given up with his own righteousness, as to his justification before God, and he will have no other defense but that. 4. Consider the end of all these, to wit,…

Now God is glorified here two ways. First, He gets the glory of His grace, that is exceedingly magnified thereby, as is clear, (Ephesians 1:5) "Having predestinated us to the adoption of children, by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the pra…

3. There is need to put in this word, the promise of God's free grace; because hereby the sinner is made to see from where the promise came, and of what nature it is, and gives ground to take hold of the promise, and of that which is made offer of in it; the promise is of free g…

1. It is impregnably proved from the reasoning of the Prophet in this place: all that are believers cannot but be redeemed and justified, because He has borne their iniquities, who by faith commit themselves to Him. 2. If faith in Christ is a saving fruit of His death, and if no…

A third place is that (Ephesians 2:21), [reconstructed: raised] him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand, in the heavenly places, far above all principalities, and powers, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but in that whic…

He is sinners' friend, that is Intercessor; and such an Intercessor, that intercedes from the impression that the holy, and inconceivable sympathy which he has with his members has upon him — as his expression to Paul speaks forth (Acts 9): "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me"…

Objection 5. We ought to believe, till we be persuaded that we believe. Ephesians 1:13: In whom after you believed, you were sealed. The way to be warm, is not only to ask for a fire, or whether there be a fire or no, or to hold out the hands a little toward it, and away, and wi…

And, there is a testimony of the Spirit, and voice to the soul, merely immediate, without any respect to, or concurrence with the word. And, such a faith as is wrought by a practical syllogism, or the word of God, is but a human faith; because the conclusion follows but from the…

Saints (1 Corinthians 1:1). Brethren, faithful (Ephesians 1:1). Christians (Acts 11:26).

And what can Angels and Men say, but Christ is the head of Principalities and Powers (Colossians 2:10). Indeed, the Head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him that fills all in all (Ephesians 1:22-23). The Chieftain of ten thousands, indeed, of al…

So that as the promise of forgiveness refers to his person, so also to this redemption that is in him. Thus both in Ephesians 1 and Colossians 1: 'In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.' His person gives us title to all the promises, and his…

And so in like manner for our sakes he was justified in the Spirit, because we were to be justified, and so to be justified first in him and with him as a common person. Now this rule holds in all blessings else bestowed; for Paul pronounces of them all that 'God has blessed us…

Therefore in the primitive times it was used as a voice of joy, and to this day the Greek Christians entertain each other at that time of the year with these words: 'The Lord is risen; your surety is out of prison; fear not.' But (as Christ said in another case, so say I) what w…

Christ is one with his Father as he himself often speaks, and therefore if his Father should deny him anything he would then cease to be one with him and must deny himself — which God can never do. He is in this respect 'the beloved' as he is called in Ephesians 1:6, on whom ori…

And for him to be exposed to such affections as these, were a weakness, an infirmity in himself, which heaven has cured him of. His power and glory is so great that he cannot be thus touched, even as the angels are not: And he is advanced far above all principalities and powers…

Demonstration, Sect. 2. Part 2.) of a double capacity of Glory, or a double fullness of Joy which Christ is ordained to have: The one Natural, and so due to his person as in himself alone considered; The other Additionall, and arising from the compleated happiness and glory of h…