In the Beloved

Ephesiaxs i. 6. — “To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved.”

“If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” Ps. xi. 3. Of all Christian character, experience, and action, the foundations are laid in Divine truth. This truth is capable of being stated in clear, intelligible propositions, which, when brought together in logical connection, and embraced under a single view, constitute systems of doctrine. Such arrangement of things known are not inventions of the learned, but demands of a necessity, existing in all human minds, precisely in the proportion of their respective clearness, strength, and patient investigation. Truths of religion, inspired truths — that is, Scriptural truths, are not exempt from this law. The enunciation of these truths, in their simpler, more rational, or more scientific form, is doctrine. To inveigh against doctrine, therefore, in religious teaching, if not a contradiction in terms, is at least to withdraw religious truth from the analogy of all other knowledge. And to say, as has been said, that “doctrine is the skin of truth, stripped off, dried, and set up empty,” is to prate ignorantly for the sake of momentary effect, if not to be treacherous to the high majesty of truth itself. Doctrine is the form of sacred truth, adapted to inculcation and transmission. Doctrinal preaching is supposed by some to be controversial or polemical. If any so err, they need the schoolmaster more than the preacher. Doctrine is above all needed at a period of general awakening. A man convinced of his sins, asks how a sinner can be pardoned, in consistency with God’s justice: the answer to his question is doctrine. He asks what that work of Christ is, on account of which he may be admitted to favour: the answer to his question, wlietlier true or false, is doctrine. He further asks, by what means the benefits of redemption may be made his own: the answer to this is doctrine. Awakened souls desiie the sincere milk of the word, that they may grow thereby. The Apostle Paul, beyond all New Testament writers, affords milk for babes, and strong meat for men. He is the doctrinal apostle. This epistle is intensely doctrinal; and our text contains a precious cluster of doctrine, which we may profitably take apart, while we consider these propositions: — 1. The Son of God is the Beloved. 2. The savino; love bestowed on believers, is on account of the Chief Beloved. 3. This Divine acceptation of the believing sinner is an act of sovereign grace. 4. The grand result of this gracious acceptance is a revenue of praise and glory to God. Let us inwardly implore the presence of the Comforter, while we meditate on these contents of the text.

I. The So:n” of God is the Chief Beloved. How significant, how delightful a title! Surely this can be none other than the Lord Jesus

Christ, of whom God the Father in prophecyspeaks thus: “Mine elect, in whom my soul clelighteth “(Is. xlii.); and concerning whom, both at his baptism and his transfiguration, the utterance was from the cleft heavens:” This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” He is by pre-eminence the beloved of the Father. In the eternity which preceded creation, quite as truly as now, God was love, thousrh there was no creature on whom that love could terminate. Yet it was not an inactive affection. The declaration was true, before all worlds, which Jesus himself made in time: ^’ The Father loveth the Son.” Here was object enough. The love of an infinite Being demanded an infinite loveliness on which to x itself, and this it found in the Divine beauties of the eternal Son, in the bosom of the Father. Ineffable are the everlasting glories, ineffable the perennial flow of mutual complacency and delight. The attributes of the adorable Father are at the same time attributes of the Son. As God is and must of necessity be his own sole and ultimate end, so this reciprocal recognition and love of the Divine persons holds before the infinite Mind its self-sufficiency of majesty, rectitude, and bliss, in a glorious reflection. But to all eternity, the Son, as the Revealer, Manifester, and Word, the Mirror of Godhead, is the object of the Supreme love.

When finite spiiits emerged out of nothing, and came upon the stage of existence, theii’ wondering eyes were tmned upon this same luminary. “When he bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.” Heb. i. 6. Of this worship, the chief ingredients are admii’ation and love. In the outgoings of infinite benevolence, seeking to communicate itself by the work of creation, that marvellous series and system of events took place which we consider the plan of redemption. It was devised in antemundane counsel and decree. It formed the subject of Divine covenanting. It received its anticipative heralding in patriarchal signs, and Mosaic emblems, and prophetic visions. It burst from idea and preparative, into actuality and reality of life, when the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. From first to last, however, it is He, the Elect, the Mediator, the Redeemer, the j)redestined Saviour, who stands forth before all worlds as embodying and re]3resenting by illustrious manifestation the infinite love of Jehovah, and the harmony of all his attributes. In so acting, the Son of God is in the highest conceivable sense the Beloved of God, performing his utmost will, honouring and glorifying his justice, and giving accomplishment to his mercy and his grace. “We hazard nothing when we say, that the Son is never so adorably lovely, and (through him) that the Father is never so sublimely honoured, in the sight of holy intelligences, in all worlds, as when he becomes incarnate, and obeys and dies in the stead of sinners. “Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God.” Infinite is he in loveliness, when first he stoops to human flesh, and to be born of a virgin; when he lies a babe in Bethlehem, and is borne to Egypt; when in sweet boyhood he ascends to the temple; when he spends an unblemished youth among the hills and vales of Galilee; when he walks over the length and breadth of the land, teaching and healing; when he suffers the contradiction of sinners against himself; when lie sinks in the garden — rises, to be betrayed by a kiss — is drafyofed from tribunal to tribunal, mocked and buffeted — bears his cross — is crucified between two robbers — and sustains the anguish of desertion and imputed guilt. Lovely is our Immanuel, in life and death; in burial and resui- rection; in the Chiu*ch and in heaven; lovely to God and angels; lovely to his saints, and that fore verm ore. Let us, my brethren, mark well what constitutes the chief attraction of his perfect attributes. It is his voluntary giving of himself for sinners; his profound, yea, infinite condescension of yearning love, in assuming guilt, and becoming “sin” for sinners; his self-sacrifice in dying under wrath, and enduring the imputation of our desert. In the estimation of an immutably holy and immeasluably loving God, there is no beauty like the beauty of holiness, which is also the beauty of love. And when God looks upon his glory in the face of Jesus, he sees that which more fills the bliss of Godhead, than the spectacle of a universe rising out of chaos, or the harmonies of numberless worlds persisting in uninterrupted due consent. The Lord Jesus Christ is therefore by pre-eminence the Beloved. But more awaits us in these words; for,

II. The saving love bestowed on beltevees, IS ON ACCOUNT OF THE Chief Beloveb: “wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved.” If the sons are received with favour, it is because of the Elder Brother. God loves them, because he loved him first. In themselves they are fallen, condemned, vile, and abominable. Not one of the mighty host possesses one trait upon which a holy God can look with complacency. But they are viewed in him. From eternity, in the awful, unuttered counsels, they were so viewed. At the Gospel promise in Eden, they were so viewed. Amidst the vicarious agonies of Gethsemane, Jerusalem, and Golgotha, they were so viewed; and all the expiatory transactions of the Head were regarded as offered by the members. In the moment of their receiving the Divine effectual call, which opens their blind eyes, educes faith, and unites them to Christ, they are so viewed. Else, considered in themselves, they must perish, and flee as chaff before the whirlwind; but thus they are pure from guilt. Infinite justice sees them in him. The sword smites the Beloved, and they go free. Vindicating wrath sees nothing but the Beloved; and so foul, malignant wietches, who were posting in their blood and pollution to hell-flames, escape the doom. They are hidden from the storm in the beloved arms; they rest on the beloved bosom; they shine like sculptured gems on the beloved shoulders and breast. They are covered, as the contents of the ark were covered, by the golden mercy-seat; cleansed, as the penitent who received crimson drops from the priestly hyssop-branch; admitted to communion, as the son of Aaron was admitted to the holy of holies. Believing, they are in Chiist; and being in him, they are beloved for his sake. Every human being is in one or other of these relations; and he who is in the Beloved, is accepted: that is, he is admitted to favour, justification, and pardon. The instant a sinner believes — though he may have been the chief of sinners a moment before — he is united to the Saviour; he is in Jesus; he is accepted in the Beloved. This is no inchoate or lialf-finislied justification. All God’s anger is turned away. The suflieiency of Christ covers all. Millions of sins, each aggravated and intensified by accumulated tuipitudes, are as easily blotted away and sunken in the deep, as a single infant fault. It is not they, it is the Substitute, at whom God is looking. ‘No progress in justification can be conceived of Each soul, at each moment, is either acquitted or condemned; either rejected as an alien, or accepted in the Beloved. Though there are degrees in the manifestation of this acceptance — for example, to the believer’s own consciousness; to the recognition of brethren; or, at the last day, to the assembled universe — yet the justification is complete at the moment of believing. The believer needs no further justification. In Christ — he can no more come into condemnation than Christ himself In Christ, he has Christ’s righteousness as his own, by a heavenly imputation. Whosoever in all this assembly has believed in the Lord Jesus, has by that act become interested in the finished work of the Kedeemer. His standing in the view of law is totally altered. He was condemned, and rapidly on the way to being eternally abandoned of God; now he is accepted in the Beloved.

III. Akd this Divine acceptation of the

BELIEVING SINNER IS AN ACT OF SOVEREIGN GRACE.

Paul refers all to “his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved.” “His grace,” means the infinite and eternal grace of the Most High. And “grace” means undeserved goodness, mere favour, spontaneous kindness, unmerited compassion, absolute gratuity. No man gets any glimpse of the plan of salvation, so long as he thinks it proceeds upon any demand of doing or suffering on the returning sinner’s part. All the meritorious doing and suffering are on the part of Christ. Faith itself, the only revealed bond of union; faith, by which alone any are in Christ, is the gift of God, bestowed when and where he pleases; faith itself, moreover, is no part of the righteousness, and only receives it, as the beggar’s hand receives the alms. And therefore, as the work is all of God, and the merit all of Christ, the acceptance enjoyed by the believer is entirely of grace.

There is in it no shred or filament of human doing or deserving. The sight of this is indispensable to true faith; and for want of this, manj are kept away forever. They continually demand of us, what more we would have them to do; forgetting, or never knowing, that the Surety has done all. JS’ote well the terms, “Hath made us accepted.” The word is active; it is not we, but God, who effects the acceptance. And when he effects it, he does so in pursuance of his own sovereign, uncaused, and eternal purpose; and so freely, fully, absolutely, or gratuitously. If anxious sinners of this house are ever justified and accepted, it will be without righteousness of their own; by another’s righteousness, altogether out of themselves; and this they will simply receive at the soverei2:n hand of God.

Words could hardly be plainer, de hoc, than those of the Apostle Paul to the Komans (ch. iii. V. 24): “Being justified freely by his grace”; that “he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth.” “A man is justified by faith, without works of law.” “Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace” (iv. 16).

“Where sin abounded, grace did miicli more abound “; “that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord” (v. 21).

It is this graciousness of his acceptance, which suddenly strikes and sometimes overwhelms the sinner at the time of his espousals. He had been hoping, indeed, to be saved by grace, in some inadequate ajDprehension of the phrase. He looked for a moment in which Divine strength should be kindly given him, in order to the doing of some great thing. In expectancy of this, he had been straining every muscle and sinew into the posture of effort and labour. At length grace came in a way he had not thought of — in the way of acquiescence — in the way of repose — in the way of ceasing from his own works — in the way of falling into Christ’s open arms.

And see how the gratuitousness of salvation is highly magnified by its being refened to so simple an instrument as mere faith; but still more, as every true convert must remember, by its being communicated at the very instant when the striiggler gave over struggling, and the sturdy worker ceased to work. Then he begins to comprehend this phrase, “the gift of God.” Damnation is of merit; salvation is of gift. “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” God is clearly and delightfully seen to be every thing, as he lifts up the faint, tearful, blushing, bleeding culprit from the earth, where he feels his true position to be, and, as he whispers in the astonished ear words of amnesty, forgiveness, adoption, fellowship, and heaven, he is in Christ; and that by the sovereign gift of the Lawgiver and King. The prodigal is seen, and met, and kissed, and wept over, and clad, and decked, and feasted. The creature that lay a perishing outcast in the open field of degradation and contempt, has found a time of love, and is covered by the skirt of Godhead. The sunshine of the Father’s smile, breaking through the parting cloud of penal indignation, in a ray of Divine effulgence, strikes first upon the Beloved, hanging on the tree, and then is reflected to the prostrate sinner who believes. “The kindness and love of God our Saviour” has now appeared; “not by works of righteousness wkick we have done, but according to his mercy.”

And this gratuitousness of the reconciliation excludes not only acts, and words, and conformities to law, but quite as much all feelings, moods, purposes, exertions, endeavours, nay, even repentings and believings. All are made utterly worthless, and superseded, by the free grace of God, whereby he hath made us accepted in the Beloved.

And how gloriously is this free favour and loving-kindness of our God magnified, when we view it as covering over and blotting out all the black and multitudinous sins of a lifetime; sins too numerous even to be reckoned by classes; sins whose depth of horrible enormity can be sounded only by the plummet of Omnipotence; sins which were destroying the soul forever; — all, all, all forgiven, on the ground of one offering, and that one offering devised, provided, executed, and applied, by the mere purpose and good- will of Him who was grieved and insulted. Well might the soul cry: “And is this the manner of men, O Lord God! “No! “but it is the manner of God in Christ; “in whom,” says the next verse, “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.”

IV. The grand eesult of this geacious acceptance IS A REVENUE OF PRAISE AND GLORY TO

God. The entire method was introduced for this very end, the glory of grace. This was the ultimate object in God’s plan, before the world began. The best authority for this is the declaration of God in the context: “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace.” Here is the consummation; it was in prospect from the eternal heights, when Divine wisdom framed the covenant of grace. As God alone is eternal and independent, God alone can be his own ultimate end, in creation, providence, and redemption. It is the highest conceivable object, to which we must subordinate even the ransom of the “nations of them that are saved.” To “glorify God,” stands higher than to “enjoy him forever.” This honour to the Infinite Supreme is effected by his grace, more than by all displays of his other excellencies. Hence we say, and feel, and sing, that our God is more manifested by the admiring homage and love of creatures, by his accepting sinners in his Son, than by all the wisdom and power displayed in the universe of matter and mind. Nowhere does so much of God shine out as in the face of Jesus Christ, dying and drawing sinners to himself Hence we would not trim down the phrase before us to mean merely glorious grace, but take it in its fulness, the glory of his grace. Glory always carries with it the notion of light, effulgence, outshining; some idea of resplendent manifestation; as in the pillar of fire, at the door of the tabernacle, and especially above the ark of the covenant. So, perhaps, at the transfiguration, and the vision of Jesus to Stephen, to Saul, to John in the Apocalypse. Glory of grace is the luminous display, before all intelligences, and especially before his oltl Omniscience, of that in Jehovah which is revealed by the free redemption of sinners. The “glory of his grace,” is the sunlike lustre and celestial beauty with which the Lord God Almighty shines forth from between the cherubim, when he shows himself to be at once a “just God and a Sa viour.” The “praise of the glory of his grace, is the acclamation which rises, and shall rise, not only from ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands from among men but from the voice of many angels round about the throne, when they cry,” Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.” It is the eternal echo of God’s voice from all holy beings in the universe. It is the loving, admiring, adoring tribute of a world of sinless or redeemed spirits, evoked by the “manifold wisdom of God.” All through this radiant chapter, the mind of Paul is full of this redundant ascription; and (v. 12) he says to early Christians, “that we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.” Time does not suffice to hold such praises within its brim; they run over into eternity; “that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward ns tlirougli Chiist Jesus “(ii. Y). Blessed be God, there are ages to come! for here we cannot praise enough. Were all the sono;s of all the saved on earth, when at the utmost rapture of each, gathered in one, and laid on one altar, the flame, though stretching heavenward, would be mingled with over clouding smoke. Hence the Church below is fain to make invocation to the Church above and to cry,” Praise ye the Lord from the heavens: praise him in the heights. Praise ye him all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts! ‘The chorus still is, with unwearying repetition “His mercy endureth forever.” “He that offereth praise, glorifieth me,” saith the Lord of hosts. Praise, therefore, for the

wonder of redemption, from all pure spirits and ransomed voices through the eternal day, “will magnificently set forth the glory of Divine grace. For their God chose us (v. 4) in him before the foundation of the world; for this he predestinated us unto the adoption of sons. Thanks forevermore be unto his holy name, our rescue is not at the expense of his glory, nor to the tarnishing of one jewel in his diadem of attributes. True, the brightest in heaven or earth did seem to suffer eclipse, and skies were darkened, and earth staggered in sympathy, when the cry was heard, “Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd, and against the man who is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts.” But the sun shone forth again; the Lord broke from the sepulchre; the heavens received him with hallelujahs, and created intellect learned to contemplate with tenfold honour the glory of the Lord.

Such is a single glimpse of the Divine triumph through grace. We have first referred it to its centre in the Beloved. On his account, we have next seen saving love bestowed on believers. Then we viewed in this acce23tance of the sinner an act of sovereign grace. And last of all, we have followed out the whole to a tribute of adoration and praise rendered to the Most High.

From a discussion like this, which concerns the cardinal doctrine of Christianity, the inferences and uses may be manifold. Among those which rise unprompted in the hearer’s mind, will be assuredly thankfulness to Him who hath made thee, and thee, and thee, O believing brethren, accepted in the Beloved. But I choose rather to narrow our conclusion to a single point, while I plead with the unreconciled, yet not careless sinner, to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Set fully before your mind, O sinner, the great truth which this passage has afforded, and yield to the irresistible argument in favour of your turning to God here and now. If God is so glorified when a sinner is accepted in his Son, then the way of all others in which you may most glorify God, is to believe. The riches of his grace is revealed for the very purjDose of being honoured and accepted. Why, then, should you hesitate as to whether the way is open or not? It is God’s own way, and there is no other. Is not the Beloved worthy? Seek you one who shall be lovelier or more meritorious? If not, come — and he is yours! Nor need you think of preparatory amendments. Your believing in Christ is the very act which does homage to that glorious grace which God delighteth to honour. Sinners perversely hang back, as if there were merit in doubting, and as if there were some hazard in doing that which of all possible acts most honours the chief method of infinite wisdom and love. Do not insanely remain in guilt, under a self-righteous apprehension that God cannot justly pardon so vile a sinner, or one so little prepared by heart-breaking exercises. To justify you in submitting to the righteousness of God, more honours God than all your obedience; because it accepts the righteousness of Christ. God’s very law, his infinite justice, satisfied by the Beloved Son, is glorified when you are accepted in him; that is, when you believe. Not to believe, is to undervalue this method, and to derogate from the merit of this Surety. Could you behold the Redeemer as he is, you would be unable to doubt. Not to believe, is therefore a sin, and, if persisted in, a damning sin. “He that believeth not, shall be damned.” Not to believe, is to withhold that much glory from infinite grace, and so to perish in your pride. It is not an enlightened conscience — it is not reverence for justice — it is not a disposition of inward obedience — it is not a fear of offending — which keeps you away from Christ; because nothing in you could so recognize and glorify infinite justice, as for you to be accepted in the Beloved. Grace waits for a new trophy, O sinner; yea, Jesus waits for thee. The more you own the splendours of law; the more you lament that you have rebelled; the more you long to be made holy; the more will you see the fitness of receiving Christ as your Saviour. It really looks as if reluctant, incredulous sinners sometimes thouo-ht thei’e would be a sort of moral delinquency, if they should surrender themselves to be saved by Chiist; as if justice would be compromised, if they should give over striving to do some great work. “Whereas, the truth is, the highest tribute to law and justice, is when the soul, by an act of faith, acquiesces in the atoning work, which gives glory to Divine grace. Come, then, O burdened sinner, and be saved in the way which most places the crown on the head of God the Saviour. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thus submit to the joint sway of Justice and Mercy. Once accepted in the Beloved, you shall be the instrument of fresh praises to him who loved you, and gave himself for you.