-
Well, if you would, turn with me
-
in your Bibles to Ephesians 1.
-
I want to complete verse 6.
-
We began to look at it last week
-
as we thought about
-
"to the praise of the glory of God's grace."
-
We talked about praising,
-
we talked about God seeking worshippers.
-
Let's read Ephesians 1:5-6.
-
Picking up the last two words of verse 4.
-
"In love, He predestined us for adoption
-
as sons through Jesus Christ.
-
According to the purpose of His will,
-
to the praise of the glory of His grace."
-
We looked at that, that's not an adjective,
-
that's a noun.
-
The glory of His grace.
-
These are the words I want to deal with today.
-
"With which He has blessed us in the Beloved."
-
With which.
-
What is the "which" referring to?
-
His grace is that with which He has blessed us
-
in the Beloved.
-
And what I want us to think about right here
-
in the first few minutes is the word "blessed."
-
He has blessed us.
-
And I want us to think.
-
I want us to do a bit of a word study here.
-
Blessed.
-
Now listen to this,
-
and I know not all of you have the ESV,
-
the English Standard Version.
-
The New American Standard says this,
-
speaking about His grace,
-
the glory of His grace,
-
"which He freely bestowed."
-
The ESV says, "blessed us."
-
The New American Standard says,
-
"He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved."
-
Now, it's interesting.
-
I cut my teeth on the King James Bible.
-
Listen, the King James reads this way:
-
"Wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved."
-
Now, accepted.
-
That sounds a little bit different than blessed.
-
Or freely bestowed.
-
The translators of the King James Version
-
basically followed Tyndale right here.
-
But you know what's interesting?
-
They also followed Tyndale in his translation
-
of Luke 1:28.
-
This word is only used twice in all of our Bibles.
-
It's used here in Ephesians 1:6,
-
and it's used in Luke 1:28.
-
The translators of the King James Bible
-
followed Tyndale there,
-
where the King James Version reads this way:
-
"Hail, thou that art highly favored."
-
Why they departed - "highly favored" in one place,
-
"accepted" in the other -
-
it's interesting.
-
I think the KJV should have stayed consistent.
-
Highly favored - you know what's very interesting
-
is I could not personally find a single lexicon
-
that gave a meaning to the word here as "accepted."
-
And what "accepted" does is it makes it sound
-
like we're perhaps dealing with
-
the doctrine of justification.
-
We're accepted in Christ.
-
On the basis of Christ's merits.
-
But this is not speaking about
-
necessarily our acceptance.
-
There's a fuller meaning here.
-
Listen to how the Holman Christian Standard
-
Bible renders Ephesians 1:6.
-
"To the glory of His grace,
-
that He favored us with in the Beloved."
-
It's the word "karitoo."
-
Now, what's interesting about that is
-
grace is "karis."
-
It's a word that is in the same
-
word group as "grace."
-
I mean, you could almost literally read it,
-
to the glory of His grace with which
-
He graced us in the Beloved.
-
Listen to Thayer's lexicon:
-
It means to pursue with grace.
-
It's the idea of somebody's over there,
-
and God sets His sights on them and says,
-
"I am going to go after them with My grace."
-
"I'm going to track them down."
-
You see that's really what happened with Mary, right?
-
Brethren, isn't this what Christianity is?
-
It's God coming to us.
-
Scripture says there's none that seeks God.
-
We need to get this idea out of our head
-
of Christianity being, people just woke up one day
-
and said well, I think I'm going to go after God,
-
as though they're initiating
-
this whole thing.
-
They're going to pull themselves up by their book straps.
-
They're going to reach out to Him.
-
They're going to search Him.
-
This isn't how Christianity is.
-
Christianity is us - we heard it from Hector.
-
Dead, Ephesians 2:1, Dead in trespasses
-
and sins.
-
We're out there in our deadness.
-
And you know what the truth is?
-
He loved his sin. I loved my sin.
-
Pete loved his sin.
-
We loved it.
-
Until He came and made us not love it.
-
We loved it. And we despised Christ
-
until He came, and by His grace,
-
He caused us to behold loveliness in the Beloved.
-
Because we didn't care for Him at all.
-
We liked our sin much better.
-
Brethren, the picture is Mary going along in life.
-
Mary did not have...
-
somebody's even got some herbal stuff up here...
-
She wasn't going along and saying,
-
you know, I think I'm going to take the herb
-
that might make a virgin pregnant,
-
make a virgin pregnant with the Messiah.
-
You know what was happening?
-
She was going along in life,
-
and suddenly there is Gabriel,
-
she's terrified,
-
and he says, "Hail, highly favored."
-
That's how it happens.
-
God comes to us.
-
He surprises us.
-
I mean, isn't that what happened?
-
I was going through life in 1990,
-
and I was loving my sin and loving that life,
-
and the truth is when God first came
-
and began to convict me,
-
I wanted Him to leave me alone.
-
In fact, I think I said as much.
-
Just leave me alone!
-
But see how it is?
-
He pursues us with His grace.
-
Even though I was saying, back off!
-
I don't want that.
-
Just let me be happy with my old life again.
-
He says, "No, I'm pursuing you with My grace."
-
It means to pursue with grace,
-
to compass with favor,
-
to honor with blessings.
-
The commentators Jameson Fawcett Brown
-
say that this word means
-
that God has embraced us
-
in the arms of His grace.
-
One other commentator says
-
He freely engraced us.
-
This verb only appears twice.
-
With Mary, "Hail, highly favored one."
-
That's the King James.
-
But they really should have brought that over
-
because that is exactly the meaning here.
-
Hail, highly favored ones, in the Beloved.
-
The Lord is with you.
-
That's what was said to her.
-
Paul is using the same exact word
-
that was used with Mary to describe
-
those of us who are predestined for adoption.
-
Same word that the angel used there.
-
What does that mean?
-
What does it mean when it's used of Mary?
-
It means, Mary, highly favored.
-
God has singled you out.
-
Singled you out of all the women in the world.
-
To carry and give birth to the Messiah.
-
You see, it's the same thing.
-
Highly favored.
-
Because brethren, I'll tell you this.
-
To be saved by Christ is a greater favor
-
than to give birth to the Christ.
-
Highly favored.
-
One of the commentators actually
-
would translate that
-
"to the glory of His grace, with which
-
He graciously favored us in the Beloved."
-
He favored us.
-
He did it.
-
This is what makes the salvation
-
offered in our Bibles
-
so absolutely unique and separate
-
and different from everything else.
-
So I just want you to get a feel for that word
-
as we take off here,
-
and we're going to look at
-
another very important word.
-
Brethren, it's interesting. Online, I have
-
all these commentaries available to me.
-
I love studylight.org if you have never checked that out.
-
It is a list of all these commentaries.
-
Now, for whatever reason, the guy who
-
puts this together, he actually throws in
-
like one Catholic commentator
-
and he throws in one Church of Christ commentator.
-
And I read the Church of Christ guy
-
and he's talking about being
-
highly favored in the Beloved,
-
and he's got to talk baptism.
-
And I thought he totally missed this.
-
He's talking about faith in baptism.
-
Brethren, we are saved by faith
-
and we should be baptized,
-
and Peter even says we're saved by baptism,
-
it's an appeal to God with this conscience
-
that is right before God and it's calling out,
-
but brethren, I'll tell you,
-
that's missing it even to go
-
to faith and repentance right here.
-
The idea is that what he is showing us
-
is our highly being favored doesn't
-
have to do with us,
-
it has to do with being in the Beloved.
-
That is the issue.
-
If you lose sight of Christ in all this,
-
you're really losing sight of
-
what the emphasis is.
-
Brethren, my focus right now
-
wants to go off this word favored, accepted,
-
in your Bible, however it comes out,
-
highly favored, freely bestowed,
-
blessed us with...
-
I want to move to the word "Beloved."
-
I come to Scripture and I constantly
-
before I prepare to preach,
-
I'm asking questions of the text:
-
Why?
-
I'm asking questions why.
-
Like, verse 6, "in the Beloved."
-
Well, brethren, if you look back at verse 1,
-
Paul doesn't address Christ as the Beloved,
-
but as Christ Jesus.
-
And you see "Christ Jesus,"
-
you see "Christ Jesus" again in that verse.
-
In verse 2, "the Lord Jesus Christ."
-
In verse 3, you see "the Father of
-
our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us
-
in Christ."
-
In 4, there's a pronoun: "in Him."
-
In 5, "He predestined us for adoptions as sons
-
through Jesus Christ."
-
In 6, why doesn't he just say the same?
-
Why doesn't he say that He has blessed us
-
or highly favored us in Christ?
-
I mean, I wonder that.
-
He's been using it so frequently.
-
And let's just talk about that a second.
-
Do you notice how much he keeps going back?
-
Do you know what's interesting to me?
-
Is in the first part of this,
-
and we dealt with this in the past.
-
How important it is that we start
-
with God the Father,
-
because that's what Paul does here.
-
He shows us the Father.
-
He shows us God the Father
-
and God the Father has a purpose
-
and He has a will
-
and in the beginning, He is choosing
-
and He is predestinating who will stand before Him
-
in love and purity,
-
and who's going to be adopted into this
-
holy, divine family.
-
And we see this.
-
We see God the Father as behind this.
-
And He is the one that is coordinating
-
this whole plan.
-
But even when the focus goes to the Father,
-
and what the Father's doing and the part
-
He's playing in our salvation,
-
Paul is hitting us with Christ
-
over and over and over and over again.
-
Has that jumped out at you?
-
I think sometimes, there's so much of it,
-
that you almost can read and begin to miss it.
-
But it's as though Paul is saying to us here,
-
you don't want to forget Christ
-
in your salvation.
-
He's not letting us do that.
-
He just keeps striking the same note
-
over and over and over.
-
Why?
-
Brethren, there is a text in Acts 4
-
that says that there is salvation in none other,
-
there's no other name under heaven
-
given among men whereby we must be saved.
-
Brethren, this is the issue.
-
He keeps bringing us back.
-
Again and again.
-
He's setting an example for us.
-
You know what it tells us?
-
We must never speak of salvation
-
except we speak much of Christ.
-
Don't talk about coming to God
-
without speaking much about Christ.
-
Don't talk about making it to heaven.
-
Don't talk about these things
-
except you bury it in all manner of
-
reference to Christ.
-
We've got to go there.
-
Brethren, there is no standing before God
-
without being in Christ.
-
There is no blessing.
-
Every blessing in the heavenly places.
-
Unless we are in Christ.
-
There is no holiness and blamelessness
-
before Him unless we're in Christ.
-
There's no adoption,
-
except it's through Jesus Christ.
-
There is no - call it acceptance,
-
call it being highly favored,
-
unless we are in the Beloved.
-
And brethren, what it makes me
-
recognize is this:
-
Don't talk to people about faith
-
and leave Christ out.
-
Don't talk to people about Christianity
-
and leave Christ out.
-
Don't talk to people about the church
-
and leave Christ out.
-
Don't talk to people about repentance
-
and leave Christ out.
-
You know what Paul shows us?
-
You know what he will not allow?
-
Is a Christ-less Christianity.
-
Not at all.
-
It's in the Beloved.
-
But here's the thing,
-
what makes verse 6 so unique
-
is that instead of speaking of Christ
-
or Jesus Christ or the Lord Jesus Christ,
-
or using a pronoun, like in Him,
-
here at the end of verse 6, we have this,
-
that He has favored us or He has blessed us
-
in the Beloved.
-
Now, I already told you, this term
-
is found nowhere else in our Bibles
-
except Luke 1.
-
Paul doesn't use this term anywhere else
-
in Ephesians or in any of his writings.
-
See, that strikes me.
-
As I'm studying and preparing,
-
here's a name of Christ,
-
a title,
-
that Paul in all of his writings
-
only chooses to use right here,
-
and I recognize this.
-
This is like you and me writing
-
where sometimes we're just,
-
we're kind of reaching for something
-
that might seem nice.
-
This is a man under inspiration.
-
This is a guy sharing the
-
very truth of God with us.
-
His use of terminology is not random.
-
And so I'm asking the question,
-
why, Paul?
-
Why here?
-
Why would you do this?
-
Why only once?
-
Now, I don't know brethren.
-
I'm kind of surmising that it's almost like
-
this title is too sacred
-
even for an inspired apostle to use
-
in a common fashion.
-
And let's think about this word.
-
God speaks from heaven
-
only three times in our New Testament.
-
And I'm not counting
-
the stuff that you find in Revelation.
-
But I'm just saying when Jesus
-
walked this earth.
-
God audibly spoke three times.
-
Once He spoke in John 12,
-
you remember?
-
That's where Jesus said,
-
"Father, glorify Your name."
-
And how did the Father respond?
-
Anybody remember?
-
"I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again."
-
Now what's interesting about that
-
is that He doesn't address His Son specifically.
-
I mean, He's speaking to Him,
-
but He doesn't use a title or a name
-
in addressing Him.
-
On the other two occasions, He does.
-
Do you know what those other two occasions are?
-
At His baptism
-
and on the Mount of Transfiguration.
-
And I'll tell you this,
-
those early Christians knew.
-
The Apostle Paul knew.
-
Those early disciples who had walked with Christ,
-
they told the story over and over again.
-
You see there when Peter's writing His epistles,
-
he's talking about the glory they saw
-
up there on that mountain.
-
He never forgot that.
-
Those disciples told the story everywhere.
-
Then when they wrote the Gospels,
-
and when they wrote their epistles,
-
and when they were talking to
-
Christians around this world,
-
when they were telling what happened,
-
when they were telling what they observed
-
when they walked with Christ,
-
they never forgot.
-
Because you see there were certain seasons
-
when suddenly the veil would be pulled back
-
and some glory... could you imagine?
-
The Father speaking?
-
They're there with Christ,
-
and suddenly a voice comes from heaven?
-
And on those two accounts,
-
God used this term in addressing His Son.
-
Either in speaking directly to Him,
-
"You are My Beloved Son,
-
in Whom I am well pleased."
-
Or, speaking to His disciples,
-
"He is My Beloved Son,
-
in Whom I am well pleased.
-
Hear Him."
-
The Father uses this.
-
And you know what's interesting to me?
-
The Father has at His disposal,
-
God the Father has a perfect command
-
of every language.
-
And out of all the terminology at His disposal,
-
He uses this term to describe His Son.
-
Beloved.
-
Just think about this,
-
have you ever seen a situation
-
where two people are really fond of each other,
-
they love each other,
-
intensely love each other,
-
and they have a pet name for one another,
-
or we call them terms of endearment.
-
And one uses it to address the other.
-
If you as an outsider come along
-
and use that term,
-
you better be very careful.
-
In fact, often it might not be
-
appropriate at all.
-
Have you ever seen that?
-
Where somebody from outside comes along
-
and uses one of the terms
-
that is a term of endearment among these two
-
and somebody comes from the outside
-
and addresses one of them with such terminology?
-
It's almost like you get the feeling it's like that here.
-
Where Paul in all of his writings,
-
will only reach out and pull in this term once.
-
And I think it is, brethren,
-
it is so significant
-
as to why he did it.
-
At first, I was kind of grappling
-
for why. Why? Why here?
-
He could have done it anywhere.
-
Couldn't he?
-
But then I saw it.
-
I saw it as I was searching Colossians.
-
Colossians is a very similar,
-
in many ways, it's a similar
-
letter to Ephesians.
-
You find some of the same ideas over there.
-
And it was in cross-referincing them
-
that it really came to light.
-
Jumped out at me.
-
Brethren, I view this
-
as like a picture of treasure.
-
I imagine all these precious stones.
-
A great treasure.
-
But in the midst of that treasure,
-
is one stone more rare than all the others.
-
That's what this word "Beloved" is like.
-
And Paul reaches out and grabs that
-
stone of rarity,
-
because he only uses it this one time.
-
The thing that I want you to understand here is,
-
the term "Beloved" is not a noun.
-
It's actually a verb participle.
-
And it implies a noun that isn't there.
-
It's like saying that,
-
you could take the -be off of this.
-
Instead of saying beloved,
-
you could say loved.
-
It's like saying that we have been blessed
-
in the loved.
-
Beloved what?
-
There's a noun that's implied.
-
It's just not there.
-
Beloved is loved with a -be on the front.
-
The -be is an intensification.
-
It's old English.
-
It intensifies a word.
-
Maybe you're familiar with other words
-
that have the -be on the front.
-
Like beware, or bewail, or bestir,
-
or bemoan, or bedazzle.
-
When you add that,
-
it instensifies it.
-
It's meaning is to eminently love.
-
It's an intensification of love.
-
But a noun is assumed.
-
We're highly favored in the loved,
-
or the beloved.
-
The beloved what?
-
I mean, certainly the term
-
that is implied is "Son."
-
Because like I say,
-
Paul well knew what the voice
-
from heaven spoke.
-
He well knew that when the term
-
Beloved was used,
-
it went hand in hand with this.
-
In fact, there's a similar usage.
-
Paul doesn't use the same term, but he uses
-
a similar terminology over in Colossians.
-
We're going to look at it in just a few minutes.
-
But where that idea comes out,
-
God speaking - this is My Beloved Son.
-
Paul is undoubtedly taking his cue
-
from what he knows is there
-
in the Gospels;
-
from what he knows those disciples
-
that were in the Lord before Him -
-
the stories they would have told
-
about what they heard
-
and how God addressed the Son.
-
Paul well knew those accounts.
-
He well knew of the baptism,
-
and the Spirit descending,
-
and the voice that came,
-
and Peter, James and John
-
and how they were just amazed.
-
Brethren, each time the veil
-
was drawn back,
-
and the voice of God
-
audibly echoed across this landscape,
-
they were given a glimpse into glory.
-
And you have to recognize,
-
when God speaks about the Son
-
it's like there's an intensity of love,
-
it's like you get this feeling
-
of the Father looking with such delight,
-
with Him I am well pleased,
-
My Beloved,
-
this is the object of My love.
-
My Son. My Beloved Son.
-
You are My Beloved Son.
-
Or, My Son the Beloved, it can be.
-
Well pleased.
-
Paul knew God had chosen this terminology
-
out of all the language that could have
-
possibly been chosen.
-
And you think about the Beloved Son.
-
Think with me about the terminology that we find.
-
In John 1:14, you don't need to turn there,
-
but at times, Scripture uses a term,
-
monogenes
-
sometimes we translate that "begotten."
-
The new KJV translates that
-
the only begotten Son.
-
It's extremely contested whether
-
the "begotten" should be there.
-
But that's not the issue.
-
Some places, some translations, say
-
"the only Son."
-
But I'll tell you this,
-
what this draws us to
-
is that Christ is the only one of His kind.
-
He's in a class by Himself.
-
Utterly unique.
-
There is none other like Him.
-
When you drop down to 1:18,
-
the ESV says He's the only God,
-
in the bosom, or at the side of, His Father.
-
He makes Him known.
-
The KJV calls Him the only begotten Son
-
who is in the bosom of the Father.
-
He declares the Father.
-
Brethren, if you just think about that term,
-
"bosom."
-
Maybe, if you're not familiar with it,
-
maybe you almost want to smile or laugh
-
when you hear it.
-
It is a precious term.
-
The bosom, you just look at that term.
-
It calls it the area between the arms.
-
And I don't imagine the arms like this,
-
I just imagine the arms out like this.
-
It's the area between the arms.
-
That's where the Son has
-
eternally dwelled.
-
And He comes into this world,
-
He leaves that,
-
He leaves the glory that He had
-
with His Father before the world began;
-
there was a glory.
-
You think of what Scripture says,
-
He is the radiance of the glory of God.
-
He declares the Father.
-
When you see Christ,
-
what you see is God declaring Himself.
-
Behold Him.
-
I'm well pleased with Him.
-
Look at Him.
-
When you look at Him,
-
what you're beholding is Him in whom
-
the whole fullness of the Godhead
-
was pleased to dwell bodily.
-
This is the very image of God.
-
Loved.
-
My Beloved.
-
Well, brethren, you find terminology
-
about Him that describes Him as
-
the eternally generated one.
-
Origen was the first to use
-
that kind of terminology in describing Christ.
-
As though He was eternally generated
-
by God from eternity past.
-
Eternal generation.
-
Eternally begotten.
-
How do we even describe that?
-
We think about a man and a woman
-
coming together and a child is conceived,
-
and there's a begetting of a child.
-
Obviously, we don't want to bring in
-
some human construction behind this.
-
But what you do want to imagine is this:
-
What it intends to imply,
-
Listen, those early church fathers were grappling.
-
We've got Robert Raymond on our shelf,
-
and we've got this systematic theology over here.
-
We can go look at Hodge and what he said.
-
Brethren, we've got resources from 2000 years.
-
But imagine in the beginning,
-
they're going into Scripture and they're saying,
-
in the beginning, He was with God,
-
and He was God.
-
He's with God. He was God.
-
Ok. What do we do with that?
-
He was in the bosom of the Father.
-
He declares Him.
-
He came into the world.
-
He took upon Himself flesh.
-
He's God.
-
He's the Son.
-
The Father delights in Him.
-
Did He have a beginning?
-
He had a beginning as a man,
-
but before that He was with the Father.
-
And they're looking at this and they're trying...
-
Father. Son.
-
But He's God.
-
God can't change.
-
They're trying to find definition.
-
And somebody like Origen says
-
eternal generation - that's how we'll describe it.
-
But it's this:
-
My son, not too long ago,
-
we went to the restaurant where he works.
-
And the girl working behind the counter said,
-
"Oh yeah, I can see it. He looks like you."
-
You see, I beget a son,
-
and I beget to him my humanity.
-
Many of my characteristics.
-
In the same way,
-
God the Father begets a Son,
-
though it be eternal,
-
because you can't go to a date
-
when He came forth.
-
But He's begotten by the Father
-
in such a way that in the same way I communicate
-
to my son my humanity
-
and characteristics and attributes about myself.
-
So in the same way, the Son is begotten
-
or eternally generated by the Father.
-
So that God the Father
-
communicates His deity to His Son.
-
The Nicene Creed says
-
God of God, light of light,
-
very God of very God.
-
This is the Beloved.
-
He's none other than the substance,
-
the very substance of eternal substance of God.
-
The only Son, the only Begotten of the Father.
-
The eternal Son.
-
And it's like when God would express
-
what He feels,
-
because the terminology you use
-
when you talk to one another
-
it's expressive.
-
And when God expresses as completely
-
and as perfectly as human language allows,
-
just what this One is to Him.
-
The One who is a reflection of His own glory.
-
No other terminology does God the Father
-
find more fitting in the divine mind than this:
-
My Beloved Son.
-
Brethren, what we need to remember is
-
who it is that came to rescue us from our sin.
-
Because, I'll tell you this,
-
I'm asking the question,
-
why at the end of verse 6?
-
Why there?
-
And of course, we have a tendency,
-
especially because I'm preaching
-
this in order, there's a real tendency
-
to think most about what's gone on before.
-
But you know what happened,
-
I got to looking over at Colossians
-
where the next closest expression to this
-
is found in Paul's writing.
-
Anything close to this in these two times
-
in all of his writing.
-
Look over in Colossians.
-
I want you to see this.
-
Hold your finger there in Ephesians 1,
-
because I want you to compare this.
-
Keep a finger in Ephesians 1
-
and with your other go over to Colossians 1.
-
You see the significance isn't so much
-
what's already been said,
-
it's that Paul is coming to a transition
-
in Ephesians where he's going to turn the focus now.
-
Up to this point, he has primarily been focusing
-
on what the Father does.
-
At the end of verse 6, the transition is taking place
-
to begin to talk about
-
the Son's primary place in our salvation.
-
It's got to do more with what's to follow,
-
than what has preceded,
-
in the fact that this terminology comes.
-
Why here?
-
Why "Beloved" here?
-
Well, notice Colossians 1:13-14.
-
Because you have almost the same thing
-
that's happening in Ephesians.
-
"God has delivered us from the domain of darkness..."
-
Colossians 1:13-14
-
"and transferred us to the Kingdom of His Beloved Son."
-
Now this is literally "the Son of His love."
-
The ESV has "Beloved,"
-
but it's not an adjective, it's a noun.
-
It's the Son of His love.
-
It's the closest terminology in Paul's writing
-
to the Beloved
-
that we find over in Ephesians 1:6.
-
But now, notice this,
-
as soon as he uses this terminology,
-
he says almost precisely what he says
-
after he uses it in Ephesians 1:6.
-
Notice this:
-
The Son of His love,
-
in whom we have redemption,
-
the forgivenes of sins.
-
Now notice that.
-
Redemption and forgiveness.
-
Now go back to Ephesians.
-
And notice this.
-
Verse 6
-
"With which He has blessed us
-
or highly favored us in the Beloved."
-
Verse 7
-
"In Him we have redemption through His blood,
-
the forgiveness of our trespasses."
-
It's almost identical.
-
Brethren, you know what it's telling me?
-
I recognized in all of Paul's writings,
-
he uses this terminology to introduce
-
redemption and forgiveness.
-
And brethren, what he's doing undoubtedly,
-
is he means to show us
-
the measure of God's love for us.
-
He takes the choice gem,
-
I mean the rarest of all the gems,
-
in the terminology by which he may call Christ.
-
And he sets it forth,
-
and see you look at it,
-
and the first thing you do is
-
you look at it and you recognize,
-
Wow, that is a valuable gem.
-
And then the next thing he says is
-
He gave it for you, for your redemption,
-
and for your forgiveness of sins.
-
You've got to be kidding me.
-
In all of his writings,
-
he uses this term Beloved once.
-
He uses the Son of His love,
-
which is almost the same thing.
-
And in both cases,
-
immediately after the rarity
-
of such a name,
-
the preciousness of the very terminology,
-
the term of holy endearment
-
and divine tenderness
-
used by the Father for the Son.
-
It's like communicating,
-
look at the preciousness between,
-
look at the intensity
-
of the divine love for the Son.
-
You were redeemed and forgiven
-
because God didn't spare Him.
-
This is meant to throw you
-
in the back of your seat.
-
This is meant to floor you,
-
right at this point.
-
Beloved, what this does is shows constrast.
-
There's glory, and you, the leper.
-
Ransomed, redeemed, pardoned.
-
Your iniquities washed away.
-
Paul would have us to think
-
of the sweet intimacy between
-
Father and Son,
-
the intensity of which God loves the Son,
-
with all of His divine being,
-
and then this:
-
God has a Son of His love.
-
God has a Beloved.
-
In the bosom.
-
And He let Him go.
-
He didn't spare Him.
-
God didn't spare the Beloved.
-
For a leper.
-
Between His arms.
-
And the Beloved. He didn't hold Him back.
-
When John comes along and he says,
-
"In this the love of God was made manifest,
-
that God sent His only Son into the world
-
so that we might live through Him."
-
Or he says, "God so loved the world,
-
that He gave His only begotten Son."
-
Brethren, we have redemption and forgiveness.
-
Not from some cheap gesture by God.
-
I'll tell you this,
-
the people that just think
-
God just sweeps sin under the rug.
-
They have no idea what God did.
-
None.
-
Because the Beloved Son
-
came from heaven
-
a lamb for the sacrificial slaughter.
-
If you want to know how to
-
properly estimate God's love for us,
-
behold the Beloved.
-
Bosom.
-
God held Him tight.
-
The Beloved.
-
Eternally in the bosom of the Father.
-
Enjoying the love, the glory,
-
the joy,
-
the smile.
-
There was such delight.
-
Brethren, if anything, this tells us,
-
God didn't save us because there was
-
some void in His bosom,
-
that He needed to fill.
-
It was full.
-
The Son of His love.
-
That eternal Trinity was quite happy
-
and content and full without us.
-
He was in the embrace of the Father.
-
When Scripture says,
-
"If He didn't spare His only Son."
-
He didn't spare Him.
-
Brethren, how can that even be?
-
He didn't spare Him.
-
In the fullness of time,
-
the Beloved is sent forth,
-
to be born of a woman, of a virgin,
-
to be born under the law.
-
We could just hasten right past the manger,
-
we could hasten right past him
-
stooping, becoming weak,
-
taking upon Him the likeness of sinful flesh.
-
Brethren, can you see Him?
-
Brethren, you have to think, brethren, think!
-
This God from heaven who spoke to Christ,
-
and called Him His Beloved Son,
-
or the Son the Beloved One.
-
He's watching.
-
He let Him go.
-
He sent Him.
-
He didn't spare Him.
-
He's watching.
-
Do you see Him there in the garden?
-
Here is one distressed...
-
bloody sweat?
-
This is the Beloved.
-
You need to see Him.
-
The Beloved.
-
He's contemplating the horrors of Golgotha.
-
And His body can't keep it's own blood inside
-
because of the strain.
-
And the Father lets Him endure that.
-
And that's not even the cross yet.
-
That's just anticipation.
-
This is the Beloved.
-
And why is He doing this?
-
He's doing this for the joy
-
that's set before Him.
-
He's doing this to redeem a people
-
that they might be adopted sons of God,
-
that they might be brought to stand holy
-
before God.
-
It's the Beloved.
-
And God the Father is watching,
-
He's tracking, He's well pleased with Him,
-
He's watching every motion of this.
-
He goes out of the garden,
-
He's captured, He's taken away.
-
He's accused.
-
Brethren, they spit on Him.
-
They spit on Him.
-
The Father is looking.
-
This One whom He held in His arms,
-
in His bosom.
-
The Beloved.
-
They're spitting on Him.
-
This is the only begotten Son of God.
-
Glory.
-
All it took was slightly pulling back the veil.
-
That glory bursts forth there on
-
the Mount of Transfiguration.
-
They spit on Him. They hit Him.
-
They put a bag on His head.
-
They accuse Him. They condemn Him.
-
They ship Him off to Pilate.
-
Pilate sends Him to Herod.
-
Herod just berates Him.
-
It's the Beloved.
-
You have kings and governers;
-
Jews and Gentiles;
-
men and women,
-
the crowd, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!"
-
Brethren, you think,
-
those Roman soldiers,
-
they nail Him to the cross.
-
They mocked Him.
-
They put a crown of thorns on His head.
-
This is the Beloved.
-
And He goes to that cross.
-
He goes there.
-
The Beloved.
-
The Father looks down upon Him.
-
He sees all this.
-
The crowds are coming by.
-
They make fun of Him.
-
Even the thieves.
-
The thieves have spikes through
-
their hands and their feet,
-
and even in their agonies
-
- it was no fun deal -
-
can you imagine?
-
It's one of the most horrendous,
-
torturous deaths you can imagine.
-
And while both theives on either side of Him
-
are in the throngs of their own sufferings,
-
they've got enough detestation for the Beloved
-
to mock Him.
-
One turns, but in the beginning,
-
the other gospel accounts tell us
-
he was just as vile a mouth as the other one.
-
Everybody's forsaken Him.
-
Everybody's against Him.
-
And then God Himself lets loose.
-
He stretches forth His hand.
-
Christ, He says, in Psalm 22,
-
I'm poured out like water.
-
My bones are out of joint.
-
My heart is like wax.
-
It's melted within my breast.
-
My strength is dried up like a potsherd.
-
My tongue sticks to my jaws.
-
You - get this - You lay Me in the dust.
-
It's like the Father takes the head
-
of the Beloved by the hair,
-
and drives His face into the dirt.
-
You, this is Christ, this is the Beloved.
-
You.
-
This is the same one who said,
-
"My Beloved Son, in whom I'm well pleased."
-
Christ is saying, "You."
-
You lay Me in the dust of death.
-
The dogs encompassed Me,
-
a company of evildoers encircles Me,
-
they pierce My hands and feet.
-
I can count all My bones.
-
They stare and gloat over Me.
-
They divide my garments among them,
-
and for My clothing, they cast lots.
-
God pours Him out like water.
-
Just melts Him.
-
We know Isaiah 53.
-
We sing it.
-
Stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
-
God does not spare His Beloved.
-
Though He's loved Him.
-
He's loved Him.
-
He's be-loved Him from all eternity.
-
But He's pierced for our transgressions.
-
Crushed for our iniquities.
-
There's the Father with all of His
-
intensity of love that He has for His Beloved.
-
But though He is the Beloved,
-
His own Father will not spare Him.
-
Because I'll tell you this,
-
if He spared Him, you and I wouldn't be saved.
-
He didn't spare Him.
-
He crushes Him.
-
For our iniquities.
-
If the Father's hand had been in any way held back,
-
there's no hope for us.
-
He cried out on that cross,
-
"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
-
And what is this?
-
Is this the cry of a forsaken man?
-
Who could that be
-
that would say something like that?
-
And see, this is what Paul wants us to come back to.
-
Don't you know who that is on that cross?
-
Don't you know who it is that's crying out
-
"My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?"
-
It's God's Beloved.
-
If I'm going to talk to you
-
about redemption,
-
if I'm going to talk to you
-
about a price being paid,
-
if I'm going to talk to you
-
about your forgiven sins and iniquities
-
and transgressions;
-
then I'm going to have you
-
behold the Beloved before we go there.
-
So that you can recognize,
-
brethren, you've got to recognize what
-
this salvation cost.
-
As I said before,
-
this is no cheap gesture on God's part.
-
None.
-
It's the Beloved.
-
Get the tape measure out.
-
Let's measure His love correctly in all of this.
-
To the lost,
-
if you don't know Him,
-
I would just admonish you in this.
-
If all of this is true,
-
I would say this,
-
open your own heart to the Beloved.
-
Let Him be your Beloved.
-
Fall down.
-
He is worth trusting.
-
He is worth loving.
-
None. None. You will find none
-
who has done so much for sinners
-
as the Beloved has done for sinners.
-
Redeeming sinners with His own blood.
-
We sang the song.
-
My hope is built on nothing less.
-
And it's the Beloved.
-
It's His blood.
-
It's His righteousness.
-
He poured out His blood to redeem sinners.
-
He did that.
-
He made a way for sinners
-
to be forgiven,
-
that they might stand before God
-
holy and blameless before Him as children.
-
In the Beloved.
-
Highly favored.
-
In the Beloved.
-
Father, I pray
-
that we might just be impressed,
-
may we feel this,
-
Lord, may You cause the glory...
-
I know there's so much about this
-
that we have to have our eyes opened,
-
the scales removed,
-
we have to feel the weight in our own souls.
-
Bring this reality home to us,
-
I pray, Lord,
-
I pray that You would help us,
-
help us, Lord, to do what You tell
-
those early disciples:
-
My Son, in whom I am well pleased,
-
My Beloved Son;
-
Hear ye Him.
-
Oh Lord, give us ears to hear.
-
Give us eyes to see
-
the altogether loveliness.
-
Touch us, Lord, with a touch of Your hand,
-
that we might all the more embrace
-
these realities.
-
Lord, I know we could even cry out
-
as the song writer,
-
what language shall we borrow,
-
to thank Thee, dearest Friend?
-
We thank You.
-
Father, what have You done?
-
What have You done in giving the Beloved
-
for wretches like us?
-
What have You done?
-
Thank you, Lord.
-
We thank You.
-
Father, we thank You.
-
Lord Jesus Christ, we thank You.
-
Spirit of God, we thank You
-
for any enlightenment You give us.
-
For any eyes that are open to behold the glory.
-
We thank You, Triune God,
-
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
-
Amen.