Compare God’s planning for salvation in Ephesians 1:3-4, with the eternal results of that plan described in Ephesians 2:7. What are essential elements and goals of God’s “plan of salvation”?
Graduation ceremonies are wonderful celebrations, whether for kindergarten or a Ph.D. A graduation marks an important accomplishment, the move to a different stage of life or career. It is important for us as believers to understand a profound truth of the gospel: we never graduate from grace. There is never a celebration that we have attained our Ph.D. in grace or graduated from our need of it.
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Paul affirms this truth in Ephesians 2:7, accenting it with an expansive chronology. God has acted in the past in Christ to redeem us, so identifying us with His Son, Jesus Christ, that we are in the present co-participants in His resurrection, ascension, and exaltation (Ephesians 2:4-6). God’s plan, though, does not end with a grace-filled past and a mercy-bathed present. God’s plan, rooted in divine councils in time immemorial (Ephesians 1:4), stretches forever into the future. It includes all “the coming ages” (Ephesians 2:7, ESV). His plan for the eternal future is founded on the same principle as His actions in the past and present — the principle of grace. “In the coming ages,” God looks forward to demonstrating “the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7, ESV).
Paul thinks of God’s grace as a treasure or fortune of unfathomable value (compare Ephesians 1:7, Ephesians 3:8) from which believers may draw to meet any need. This grand generosity of God toward us becomes an eloquent, ageless, and cosmic exhibit of His grace.
“By coming to dwell with us, Jesus was to reveal God both to men and to angels … . But not alone for His earthborn children was this revelation given. Our little world is the lesson book of the universe. God’s wonderful purpose of grace, the mystery of redeeming love, is the theme into which ‘angels desire to look,’ and it will be their study throughout endless ages. Both the redeemed and the unfallen beings will find in the cross of Christ their science and their song. It will be seen that the glory shining in the face of Jesus is the glory of self-sacrificing love.” — Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, Pages 19, 20.
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