“In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” (Ephesians 1:11)
Paul opens this letter to the church at Ephesus in praise to God for having “chosen us in him before the foundation of the world… according to the good pleasure of his will [which he purposed in himself] to the praise of the glory of his grace,” (vs. 3-6). He then reiterates, “In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory,” (vs. 11-12).
The depths of divine mystery surrounding the doctrine of predestination are well beyond the scope of human comprehension. It is, as Fulgentius defines, “a preparation of the works of God, which in his eternal counsel he decreed to do to show his mercy or his justice in.”[1]
And yet Paul beautifully lays out this complex doctrine in the first chapter of Ephesians, reminding us several times over that: 1) God specifically chose those he wanted to be in his family and to share in his inheritance before he even created the world; 2) this predestination fulfilled the divine plan which he purposed in himself, after the counsel of his own will; and 3) this divine plan both pleased and glorified God.
It is a staggering truth that before time began God purposed to restore harmony to a world and a people that what would soon be riddled with sin and death. And more specifically, as Paul explains in these verses, he purposed that you and I should have a part and a place in that redemption, “in whom also we have obtained an inheritance.”
Imagine… in eternity past God included you and me in the counsel of His own will! He not only conceived the plan of redemption; he saw us in it. God’s children have always been in his mind and on his heart. We are there now because we were there then, “before the foundation of the world.”
One of the most amazing and most comforting truths we can hold onto is that God works all things according to the counsel of his own will (Eph. 1:11). Everything originates in God; everything flows out from God. He is entirely responsible for the origination and the conception of his purposes, and he is equally responsible for carrying them out to their fulfillment. Among other realities, this means that God not only put you where you are right now, you can be assured that “he who began a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ,” (Phil. 1:6).
In summary, this is the predetermined counsel of God’s will regarding our redemption in Christ. First, he purposed to glorify his name in saving those he loves and chooses according to his good pleasure. Then he predestined them to eternal life and foreordained the ways and means by which they are brought to that life. Such is the divine mystery of predestination – that God chose us before the foundation of the world to fulfill the good pleasure of his will to the praise of his glory!
Contemplations:
- You are in every way perfect and complete in yourself, Lord. You need nothing that any creature can do; neither can a creature do anything that might move you to this or that, for you do in your own good pleasure that which you will as you see all things perfectly.
- Lord, your counsel pertains to the whole Godhead. It is an action of the whole and holy Trinity, deliberating and determining before the beginning of time all things what should be or should not be; especially regarding the salvation of men (Eph. 1:11). It is a wonder to know that you work all things after the counsel of your own will, the supreme and only effectual cause.
- You, eternal God, elected us in Christ Jesus your Son based on mere grace, and you did so before you even created man. You appointed Christ to be our Head, our Brother, our Pastor, and the great Bishop of our souls. Because the enmity between your justice and our sins was such that no flesh by itself could approach you, it moved you that the Son of God should descend to us and take himself a body of our body, flesh of our flesh, and bones of our bones. In so doing, Christ become the perfect Mediator between you and us; giving power to as many as believe in him, to be the sons of God, as he himself witnesses. “I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” What a holy union, that we would gain back what we lost in Adam and have it restored to us through Christ.
- David assures us that our God who is in the heavens “does whatsoever he will,” and Paul says that God works “all things according to the counsel of his own will.” Justin Martyr, with Saint Augustine said that God’s will is “the cause of all things.” There is no confusion he cannot order, no wisdom he cannot frustrate, no weakness he cannot enable. Nothing is so high that it is above his command, nothing so low that it is beneath his providence.
Further References for Eph. 1:11:
Heb. 6:17; Rom. 8:28, 9:11; Titus 2:14
[1] Andrew Willet, Hexapla, (London: Cantrell Legge, printer to the University of Cambridge, 1611), 382.
