The Body Formed in Eternity Past, Part 2

And I don't know about you, but I...when I think of all that God has done for me in making me holy and imputing to me the righteousness of Christ, as Romans 3 says, it causes me to want to live it.

Doesn't it, you? At least to be grateful. Why did He do this?

Very simple. In love, having predestinated us. You see, there's only one reason He did it. What was it? Love. For God, so what? Loved the world.

C.S. Lewis said that Christians can be like children who would rather make mud pies in a slum instead of playing at a lovely beach. In other words, they may settle for measly joys, not realizing there is something much, much better.

The question is, are you doing what Lewis described? Are you putting too much focus on earning money, developing your career, building relationships, things that aren't necessarily wrong, but they don't even compare to the riches Christ offers? How do you take hold of the untold wealth that's yours if you're a Christian? John MacArthur helps answer that life-changing question in his current series on Grace to You, titled Richer Than You Think. Well, John, Thanksgiving is just a few days away, and it's been a difficult year, but we do have a lot to be thankful of. So talk specifically about what, or more accurately, whom we here at Grace to You have to be thankful of for this year.

And I'm thinking of the people who help us every day reach so many people with God's truth. Yeah, this has been a very bizarre year for everyone, and for us as well. And people have asked me all the way through this year, are you discouraged? Is this a difficult year? And my response has been, this is amazing how the Lord has worked. It's been incredible. Even all the chaos going on with not being able to have church all across this nation and Grace Church going ahead and meeting and all the Lord has done.

And while there have been some tough challenges to navigate for the Master's University students and the Master's Seminary students, and everybody has had really bizarre kind of intrusions into their life and families with kids not being able to go to school. Through all of this thing, we have sustained the ministry of Grace to You day after day after day on the radio. We've done our television ministry. The website has been, I think, hit more times this year than any previous year.

That's right. People are downloading sermons at a rate that's beyond what they've done in the past because there's a desperation for reaching out for the truth. So it's been an incredible year. And that leads me to thank all of you who have partnered with us.

Thank you. Thank you for your letters, your calls, your prayers, your gifts. We have seen the hand of the Lord in marvelous ways. I've been able to preach the gospel in places and to people that I never would have thought would have been possible. Doors have been opened to us that have never been opened in all the years of my life, and people are listening to Grace to You and downloading our resources at an epic level. And we're thankful for that, but it all depends on your faithful, loving prayers and support. You are the ones who in the power of the Spirit carry this ministry. So from all of us, we thank God for you. We thank you for your faithfulness. Yes, friend, we are thankful for you, for your love of God's Word, and for your support of this ministry.

The fact is, lessons like today's are possible because of people like you. So thanks for all you do for Grace to You. And with that, here's John with today's lesson. We're looking at verses 4 through 6a of Ephesians 1, and I'll read them just to give you a setting for your thoughts. "'According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him. In love having predestinated us under the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace.'" The emphasis of Ephesians is that we are a body. Now in the theology of the body, which is basically what Paul deals with in the first three chapters of Ephesians, Paul begins by taking us into eternity past to see how God designed it.

This is like looking at the blueprint. Into eternity we go, we find God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, all three mentioned in the first great paean of praise that runs through verse 14, all having their part in the master planning of the body of Christ. Now there are three elements to the master plan. First element is what you'd call election. There are three kinds of election in the Bible.

Number one is what's called theocratic election, it's what I call theocratic election. God chose a nation, that is theocratic election. God didn't say, now all right, I'm going to look around and find the best nation. He says, I didn't choose you because you were the biggest nation. I just designed to set My love upon you.

I designed to love you. That was My own free choice. I chose you as a nation.

Now watch this point. That in no way had any effect on their personal salvation, okay? So there was theocratic election.

There's a second kind of election I want to mention and that's what I call vocational election...vocational. There are some times when God just on His own sovereign choice chooses a certain person or persons to do a specific task. That also is unrelated to salvation. Jesus said in John 15, 16, you have not chosen Me but what?

I have chosen you. And He wasn't talking about salvation there, He was talking about the task of being a disciple or an apostle. This has nothing to do with salvation.

But now you come to the third one and that's salvational election. And this is the kind that you find in Ephesians 1. He has chosen us, not in a theocratic way, not in a vocational way but in a personal way to come to know Him. You have a statement, for example, in Romans 16, 13, salute Rufus, chosen in the Lord.

That's salvation that God has ordained that we should be His people individually. He has chosen us. And there are many Scriptures on this. First Peter starts out where Peter says that he writes to those in Cappadocia and Pontian, Bithynia and Asia who are predestined, who are chosen. He chooses individuals to salvation. In fact, in John 6 44 it says, no man comes under Me except...what?...the Father draw Him.

No one is saved unless they are drawn. And it's used in ancient pagan writings, that word, to speak of an irresistible force. For example, some pagan writers use the word to speak of a hungry man being drawn to food as if by a magnet.

It is used to speak in other pagan writings of demonic forces drawn to animals when they're not able to possess men. It is used of the power of love that draws two people irresistibly together. It is a force, it is a firm and a compelling and an irresistible force is this term. A good way to illustrate it, I don't know if you've ever seen a scrap metal plant where they bring the boxcars in and the boxcars are jammed full of the scrap metal stuff and this great crane comes over and hanging from the crane is this huge electromagnet with all those big copper coils and it generates just an incredible field of force down into that thing and as if rising from the dead, the metal that has any kind of iron in it just comes leaping out of that thing.

And any of the non-ferrous matter like tin and aluminum and brass and those kinds of things just falls to the bottom. And in such a manner, Jesus says in John 6.44, the force field of God's free, sovereign, elective power has drawn to Himself those that are predetermined to be loved for eternity, an irresistible force. But on the other hand, it is not without faith that we respond, right? It is not without faith that we respond. Jesus said, all that the Father gives will come to Me and then He turned right around and said, and Him that comes to Me I'll...what?...and no wise cast out.

That's the other side. Romans 9, it says that the children were chosen before they were born so that nobody would think that salvation had anything to do with them. It was all of God, so that the glory is all God's. But in the next chapter it says, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. You have sovereignty, that's God's side. You have human choice, that's man's side.

And from our side, the benefit of the doubt is here, folks, because we can come just because we want to come. That's what the Bible teaches. So George Chadwick said at the end of the eighteenth century, I sought the Lord and afterwards I knew. He moved my soul to seek Him seeking me. It was not I that found, O you're true.

No, I was found by Thee. He's right. Now some people are going to say, oh, but you missed the whole point. You see, election is based on foreknowledge. And foreknowledge is why God chooses because He looks ahead and He says, aha, so that's what they're going to do. I heard a guy say one time, it's like you're driving down the street, see, and some drunk comes driving by you and he's weaving all over the place, you know, and you say to your wife, if he keeps driving like that, he's going to have an accident.

You go five miles down the road and sure enough, he's smashed into a post. Aha. And so I heard a preacher say, you see, that's God. He's looking at the way things were going into life as he sees it in the future and he says the way they're going, they're not going to make it. And so on that basis, he chooses the ones who will already, according to his foreknowledge, make it. That's what the Bible tells you.

It's a nice story. This isn't true. You can't pair that up with the Bible. It's amazing how you can teach off of illustrations that aren't biblical. Foreknowledge is an interesting word, proginosko. It does not mean to know something before it happened in the Scripture. The word no implies an intimate love relationship. For example, it says in the Old Testament, Cain knew his wife and she bore a son. It doesn't mean he knew who she was. It means they had an intimate physical relationship when a child was conceived. When it was talking of Mary and Joseph, it says that Mary had never known a man.

It means she never had a sexual relationship with a man. That word no carries with it a very, very close...Jesus said of His sheep, I know My sheep and they know Me. And He wasn't saying we know who we are. He was saying we have an intimacy together. Matthew 7 23, they said, Lord, Lord, He said, I never knew you.

I never had that intimate relationship with you. In Amos 3, 2, He looks at Israel and says, You only have I known of all the nations of the world. They weren't the only people He knew about, they were just the only people He had a unique, intimate love relationship with. And foreknowing is simply predetermining that love relationship. God decided to love you before the world began. He decided to set His affection on you, that's foreknowledge, a preliminary love relationship established in the mind of God before time began. In Romans 11 He talks about Israel whom He foreknew.

Is that the only people He ever knew anything about? No, no, it means Israel whom He predetermined to set His love on. Read Romans 11 verses 2 and 5, you'll see it there. That doesn't mean there's no human responsibility.

I say that again, beloved, I don't want you to get confused. There is human responsibility, but there is divine sovereignty. God is running things. Now I don't know how it harmonizes with my choice, but I know this, I believe with all my heart that I can walk up to any man on the street any day of the week and I can say to that man, here's the gospel of Jesus Christ and if you will in your heart to know the Lord Jesus Christ, you can be saved.

I can say that to him. I don't know how that harmonizes with God's sovereignty, but that's His problem and He can handle it. So the method, sovereign selection. Now real fast we're going to go through the next six points.

Oh, ye of little faith. Point number two, point number two, the object. This will become obvious now, it will flow right out of what we said. What is the object of this marvelous election? The method we know, sovereign selection. The object, the elect, us. Verse 4, He has chosen us in Him.

He's chosen us to be in Christ. The us are the faithful. The us are the ones who believe.

The us are the ones who respond. And you see, beloved, this is the human side of it. Nobody ever will go to heaven, ever, ever in all of history who does not willfully, consciously submit himself to obedience to God. There must be a response. Jesus said, You will not come to Me that you might have life.

You won't come. You remember in Luke 22, 22? It says that Jesus was delivered, in effect, delivered to be crucified as it was determined.

God had it all planned. And then the next line says, But woe unto that man by whom he was betrayed. Both sides of it. God's absolute sovereignty and yet Judas was responsible for every deed he did.

That doesn't take you off the hook. It just lets God be God. And man, man, we are the object, us. You know, I think about that, people, and it just really is amazing. I look at myself and you say, You mean to tell me that God chose John MacArthur in him before the foundation of the world in order that he might make me like Jesus Christ, in order that he might give me a room in the Father's house and fellowship with me forever?

I don't know what that does to you, but it's pretty exciting stuff, folks. I mean, being a Christian is pretty fabulous when you think about it in those terms. We are the chosen. We are the elect. We were His before the world began. We were the inheritors of His kingdom before the world began. We were the choice to be in the Father's house forever before the world began. Now by the time you get three chapters full of this and you come to chapter 4, Paul's going to suggest that maybe you ought to live like it.

And you're going to say, He's probably right, if you're not saying it already. You ought to walk worthy of such a vocation, he says in 4.1, such a high calling. This is cause for praise. No wonder he said, Blessed be God. You know, it's all of Him that He has chosen us. So the object, the elect, the method, sovereign selection. Thirdly, the time.

We already know this. According as He's chosen us in Him when? Before the foundation of the world. Before the foundation of the world. Before anything ever was.

In theology we call it predestination, election. Before the fall before creation, before time, before anything. God laid it all out. You know, it says here He formed the body before the world began. In Matthew 25, 34 He said, It's the joy of the Father to give you the kingdom which He prepared for you from before the foundation of the world.

The kingdom was ours then. In 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 19 it says this, But with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world. Listen, the body was formed before the world began. The kingdom was formed and we were given a place before the world began. Christ was crucified, as it were, before the world began. The whole master plan is simply being worked out and we're a part of it. Things don't happen by chance. No wonder in 2 Timothy says, For you are God's masterpiece...you are God's masterpiece created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God has before ordained that you should walk in them. See? Your style of life was preordained before the world began.

So the method, sovereign selection, the object does the time eternity forth. The purpose, why did He do this? That we should be holy and amomas, without blemish before Him.

Oh, you say, John, I think this is where the plan broke down. I can't make it. I'm a Christian and I love Jesus Christ but I am not without blame. I am not without blemish. I am not spotless. I am not holy.

Oh yes you are. You see, because Paul is talking about your position in Christ, not your practice. Boy, if you don't understand positional truth, you'll never understand Ephesians. Positionally before God, you are holy.

Why? Go back to verse 4, He's chosen us in Him. We are in Christ. The end of verse 3, because we are in Christ, His holiness is ours. His righteousness is imputed to us. His spotlessness is our spotlessness and thus does Paul say in 527, He has taken the church to present the church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish. Listen, before God you're holy and without blemish.

Why? Because you're one with Christ and His blood covers your sin. It's hidden from God. His righteousness is imputed to you. It's as if you have a cape of righteousness covering you and when God sees you, He sees only the righteousness of Christ.

You couldn't stack up one sin in a row because they're all covered in the sacrifice of Christ, because you're covered in the righteousness of Christ. That's your position. Now your practice ought to match that, you see. The Christian life is simply making your practice equivalent to your position.

You understand that? It's living like who you are. It's becoming what you are. When God looks at John MacArthur positionally, He says, John MacArthur, holy, spotless, without blemish. When He looks around the corner and sees me practically, He says, got a long way to go. But you see, He's talking about your position.

Beloved, listen to this. He's made a holy church positionally. We're all as holy as Jesus.

Can you imagine that? Before God. You say, God is very kind.

That's right. That's what He's been saying through this whole book here. He is very gracious.

It would be nice if He said, look, I'll take you halfway and if you've got what it takes, fella, you'll go the rest of the way. It takes us all away. And so does it say in Colossians 2, 10, and you are complete in Him. And He is the fullness of God and you are complete in Him. He is the playroma of God.

And then Paul again says, and you are playroma in Him. All that God is, you become in Christ just as holy, just as blameless, just as spotless positionally. That's why I don't believe you could ever lose your salvation because it's secured to you in the righteousness of Christ. The only way we could ever be lost would be if Christ was lost and that can't happen because we're in Him, we're as secure as He is. In fact, if you read the book of Hebrews, you'll find that salvation there is even called perfection.

It's called perfection. And so we are made holy in Christ. And I don't know about you, but I...when I think of all that God has done for me in making me holy and imputing to me the righteousness of Christ, as Romans 3 says, it causes me to want to live it, doesn't it, you?

At least to be grateful and show it in my life. So the method, the object, the time, the purpose, the motive is number five. Why did He do this? Whatever possessed God to do this?

Very simple. The last part of verse 4 should be the first part of verse 5, in love, having predestinated us. You see, there's only one reason He did it. What was it? Love.

For God, so what? Loved the world. It's always love. It's always love. And what is love? It is a disposition in the heart of God by which He determines to sacrifice Himself to meet the needs of others. Love is not an emotion, biblically. Love is an act of selfless sacrifice. Greater love hath no man than this, than that a man...what?...lay down his life.

That's love. Love is the act of self-sacrifice which seeks the betterment of someone else. God determined that He would sacrifice Himself for us.

And in love He set His affection upon us before the world began and said, For those people I will die. For those people I will go to a cross. For those people I will build a kingdom that will never end. For those people I will pour out all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies.

Why? Why God? Why do you care so much? Because God is...what?...love. And we love Him because...what?...He first loved us. It was love. Chapter 2 verse 4, But God who is rich in mercy for His great love for which He loved us, that's why He has made us alive together with Christ.

That's why. Amazing...amazing that God would set His love on us. Paul never got over it. He never could understand it...never.

I don't think any Christian can who thinks of it. And so we see that God has planned this from eternity past. We see the method, sovereign selection, the object, us, the time, eternity, the purpose, holiness, the motive, love.

Sixth, the result. And the result is so beautiful. The result is sonship in love having predestinated us unto the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ to Himself. Through Jesus Christ God adopts us to Himself.

What a fabulous thought. God doesn't say, listen, you folks, I'm going to allow you to be subjects in my kingdom. You can be my servants. I might even let you be my friends.

That would be nice. But God says, you're not only not servants, you're not only not friends, you're going to be my sons. You see, if God loved us, then He would draw us as close to Himself as was possible and the closest you can be is to be in the same family. Sonship. When you become a Christian, you become a child of God. And Paul says you can cry Abba, Father, which means papa or daddy, a term of closeness and endearment, a term of affection because you have access to Him. Daddy, God is on your side. God is one with you with the same common life.

Do you realize that to be saved means to have the life of God and the soul of man? His life pulses in me. You know, I can adopt a child and I could love that child as much as a child that was born to my wife and I. I could love that child more even. I could pour my love upon that child.

I could make a home for that child as many of you have. But there's one thing I could never do. The one thing I could never do would be to give my spirit and my nature to that child.

I couldn't do that. And that's precisely where adoption into the family of God is different. When you were adopted into the family of God at the moment you believed in Jesus Christ as it was predetermined before the world began, Peter said you became a partaker of the divine nature. You have the very nature of God within you. Not only that, He granted unto you His Spirit. So when we were adopted, we were given God's nature and God's Spirit.

He drew us as close to Himself as He could. And Jesus said, I'm going to go away and make a room for you in the Father's house. And as sons you have access to all that God has for you. And so God formed a body.

Lastly, why? What was the end that He had in mind? Why did He want all of us to be His sons?

Why did He want to do this? The reason is glory, verse 5 at the end, according to the good pleasure of His will to the praise of the glory of His grace. You see, the reason He did it was because He wanted to do it to get glory. The reason, beloved, the reason for everything, the reason for everything that exists in the universe is that God may be glorified. The Old Testament says the beast of the fields shall give me glory. The psalmist said the heavens declare the glory of God. The only rebels in the whole universe are fallen angels and fallen men. Everything else glorifies God.

And believe me, the fallen angels have been removed permanently from God's presence and so will the fallen men who don't come to Jesus Christ. God will remove from His universe all which does not give Him glory, leaving only that which glorifies Him. That's the ultimate reason for everything that exists. That's why it says to the Christian in 1 Corinthians, whatever you do is mundane as eating and drinking, do it all the glory of God.

That's the purpose for everything. The reason the Lord chose the body before the foundation of the world, the reason He preordained it, the reason He laid it out, the reason He did it all Himself with no human will and no help and nothing is that the glory might all be His. If salvation was half God and half man, then God would get half the glory and man the other half. If salvation was 95% God and 5% man, then God would get 95% glory and we would get 5%, but salvation is 100% God so He gets all the glory and just to make sure nobody ever got confused, He laid it all out before any human being was ever born. So there's no question about it. And so for His own good pleasure, He said, it's the Father's good pleasure, said Jesus, to give you the kingdom, for His own good pleasure, to seek His own glory.

Well, what a thought. Fit into His body before the world began to be to the praise of His glory. I hope you are in practice what you are in position. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur. Thanks for being with us. John's current study is looking at the inexhaustible spiritual treasure all Christians can enjoy right now. It's titled Richer Than You Think. Also, keep in mind, if you've missed any message in this study, you can download it for free from our website. Same thing with all of John's sermons.

If you're a Christian, you have a tremendous amount of spiritual wealth and privilege. So make sure you know how to tap into that. Download the Richer Than You Think messages today. Our web address, www.gty.org.

And again, the series to look for, Richer Than You Think, free to download in audio or transcript format from our website. In fact, all of John's sermons, that's 3,500 messages total, all of them are available free at www.gty.org. Also, with just over a month left in the year, this is a crucial time for Grace To You. About 25% of the revenue we need to operate Grace To You typically comes in during the last weeks of the year. If you'd like to partner with us in taking verse-by-verse teaching to people throughout the English and Spanish-speaking world, send your tax-deductible gift to Grace To You, Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412. Or call us at 800-55-GRACE. That number one more time, 800-55-GRACE.

Or you can donate online at www.gty.org. And thanks too for remembering to pray for John and the staff. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to be here next time when John looks at the life-changing blessings God gave you when He saved you. It's all part of John's current study, Richer Than You Think. Tune in for 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Tomorrow's Grace To You.