Monday, July 7, 2008
Ephesians 1:6 . . . to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved.
FULL OF GIFTS: TO HIS PRAISE
"To the praise of the glory of His grace" -- The object of Paul's praise after everything that he has just described is the grace of God.
We know that just as God loved us and chose us without any reason, so we ought to love and praise God. This is, in fact, the first commandment. Summarized also in Deuteronomy 6:5, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength." In other words, we should love Him without division, without reason or cause, and without distraction. But, alas, such a thing is beyond impossible. It is this very command that made Martin Luther so angry without himself and forced him to acknowledge that the harder he tried to keep the law the farther he was from accomplishing it.
That very thing, however, that is the highest good of the law and the most unattainable, becomes at the understanding of the Gospel the automatic response of the heart. For He, who deserves all praise and love without reason, gave us not only a reason, but a reason beyond the comprehension of our minds. That which we understood but could not attain, we attain through what we cannot understand. The very thing that we ought to have given to God, He gave to us, namely unconditional love. In this manner, the God of all glory, who lacked glory in our sight, became in the eyes of Paul full of glory. Because of His grace, which He He poured out on us, even when we saw in Him not glory but only wrath and anger, we see Him full of glory. And in this manner Paul returns in thought to that very first word he wrote: "BLESSED be God the Father, who has blessed US with EVERY spiritual blessing."
2 Corinthians 3:7-11 "But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels. For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious."
