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Our apostle having in the former verse offered up a very solemn thanksgiving to God, for blessing the Ephesians with all spiritual blessings in heavenly things in Christ, he comes in this verse to discover and declare the fountain from whence all these spiritual blessings did proceed and flow, namely, from God's gracious purpose in our election before all time; He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy, &c.
Where note, 1. The favour vouchsafed, election; and the fruit and product of that favour, holiness of life and conversation.
Note, 1. The favour and privilege vouchsafed by God, He hath chosen. This denotes the freeness of the favour: he chose when he might have refused. His book of life is a book of love; the cause of our love is in the object; the reason of God's love is in himself.
Note, 2. The subject of this favour, He hath chosen us, us Gentiles. The Jews much gloried in their being a chosen generation, a peculiar people; we Gentiles are a chosen generation also; they were beloved for their father's sake, Abraham's, we for Christ's sake.
Note, 3. The antiquity of this favour: Before the foundation of the world: that is, from all eternity. The apostle, to take the Jews off from boasting, as they did, that the world was made for their sake, and that the Messiah from the beginning of the world did enter into a covenant with God to redeem them especially, declares, that the despised Gentiles were elected and chosen by God to be an holy people to himself; and all this, in the purpose of God, before the foundations of the world were laid.
Note, 4. God is said to have chosen us in Christ, as our head. Consider Christ as God, so we are chosen by him. I know whom I have chosen, says Christ. Consider him as a Mediator; so we are chosen in him, not for him: because, not Christ's undertaking for us, but the Father's good pleasure towards us, was the spring and fontal cause of our election. The truth is, God was so far from choosing the Gentiles out of faith foreseen, that he did not choose them for the sake and obedience of Christ foreseen; God did not love us from eternity because Christ was to die for us in time, but because he loved us with an everlasting love; therefore in the fulness of time, Christ was sent to die for us: so that the death of Christ was the fruit and effect, but not the cause of our election. No other reason, says bishop Fell upon the place, can be assigned of this privilege, but the good pleasure of God; and if Christ's sufferings were not the cause of our election, much less our own deserving, as he adds there; Almighty God not choosing us because worthy, but to make us worthy by choosing us.
Note, 5. The effect and fruit, the benefit and end, of this free and ancient favour: That we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Holiness is here declared not to be the cause, but the effect of our election: God chose the Gentiles from eternity to be his people, not because they were holy, they were far enough from that, being afar off from God, but designing that they thus graciously chosen should be holy; initially, progressively, and perseveringly holy in this life, and perfectly holy in the next; yet arriving at such a perfection here in holiness as to denominate us blameless in the account of God, by virtue of our faith in Christ, and love to one another.
From the whole learn, 1. That God's bestowing all spiritual blessings upon us in time, is the effect and fruit of his electing love from all eternity; He hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings, according as he hath chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world.
Learn, 2. That God hath chosen none to happiness and glory hereafter, but only such as are holy in conversation here, holy in the habitual frame and disposition of their hearts, and in the general course and tenor of their lives and actions.
Learn, 3. That such as are holy before God, will endeavour to walk unblamably in the sight of man, in the exercise of love, and in the practice of all the duties of the second table, which are at once evidences of our sincerity, and an ornament to our profession; That we should be holy, and without blame, before him in love.