Accepted in the Beloved
I ALWAYS MAKE IT A PROMINENT POINT IN MY PRAYERS to thank God for His goodness and grace. This is a message about God’s goodness and grace. It is a beautiful message. “Beautiful” will be an oft-repeated word in this blog …
NKJ Ephesians 1:3-6 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved.
“BELOVED”… That’s an especially beautiful term, isn’t it? Allow me to ask you, and I encourage you to think on your response, for a long moment, do you regularly think of Jesus as “the Beloved One”? The entire perspective of our lives, it is not an exaggeration to say, depends in great part – if not entirely – on our response…
“ACCEPTED IN THE BELOVED”… A beautiful title, but one I am not so sure is the best, most accurate title…
I CHOSE THE TITLE LAST WEEK BEFORE I STUDIED THE PASSAGE IN DETAIL… When I have taught Ephesians in the past, both at the seminary and former churches on Wednesday night studies, I used the NKJ. So, I identified with the phraseology “Accepted in the Beloved.” While it may be argued that the term fits the context, after studying the passage and the Greek word in detail, I believe I would have chosen a different title…
THE WORD “ACCEPTED” IS THE GREEK VERB χαριτόω (kar-i-ta-o)… BDAG, the most prominent Greek lexicon in the world today defines this word, to cause to be the recipient of a benefit, bestow favor on, favor highly, bless. This leading lexicon does not mention as a connotation the word “accepted”…
CONSEQUENTLY, THE NAS AND NET TRANSLATE V. 6…
NAS Ephesians 1:6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
THE ESV READS…
ESV Ephesians 1:6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
MOST OF US ARE VERY FAMILIAR WITH LUKE 1:28; it is the verse we are likely to hear almost every Christmas, the verse that relates the account of the angel Gabriel appearing to Mary. It is interesting to me that the NKJ translates the same Greek word here in Luke 1:28, not “accepted” but “blessed”…
NKJ Luke 1:28 And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!”
THESE ARE THE ONLY TWO USES OF THE GREEK VERB χαριτόω (kar-i-ta-o) in the entire N. T. Another leading Greek source adds this note, “In χαριτόω (kar-i-ta-o), there is not only the impartation of God’s grace, but also the adoption into God’s family in imparting special favor…
SO, WITH THAT NOTE IN MIND, IT IS UNDERSTANDABLE WHY THE NKJ CHOSE to translate the word “accepted.” It fits the context. It speaks of the result of predestination and adoption. We who have been predestined to adoption as sons have been “Accepted in the Beloved”…
“THE BELOVED” IS, OF COURSE, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST…
WITHOUT CHRIST, WE ARE NOT ACCEPTED BY GOD, with Christ, however, we are accepted as God’s adopted children. It is an incomparably good feeling, is it not, to be loved and accepted by God our heavenly Father?…
THE GRACE OF WHICH PAUL SPEAKS – AND WHICH I WILL SPEAK MORE OF in a moment – is made possible only because of Christ. It is possible only for God to exercise this grace, and it is possible only for us to receive this grace, because of the sacrifice and victory over death of the Lord Jesus, “The Beloved”…
PRAISE HIS PRECIOUS NAME! AMEN?…
AS I STUDIED THIS WEEK I CAME TO SEE THAT I COULD HAVE TITLED V. 6 in at least three ways:”Accepted in the Beloved,” “The Beloved,” and “Glorious Grace,” all of which would have been fitting for this great verse…
VERSE 6 OF CHAPTER 1 OF EPHESIANS IS FILLED WITH EXALTED WORDS and imagery as it describes God, Christ, and what has been done for us in Christ…
I BELIEVE YOU’LL AGREE, the soul of every Christian should be both exalted and humbled when the words and meaning of this wonderful verse are proclaimed…
WE SHOULD NEVER HAVE DIFFICULTY EXCLAIMING, (ba-rook a-tah a-do-nai): “Blessed Art Thou, O Lord!” (v. 3)…
THESE OPENING VERSES IN EPHESIANS, IN ESSENCE, GIVE US NOTHING LESS than God’s plan of salvation; they tell us how we were saved. We were saved by God the Father through God the Son “to the glory of His praise”!…
“THIS DESIGNATION OF ‘THE BELOVED’ OR ‘BELOVED ONE,’ as some scholars prefer, marks out Christ as the supreme object of the Father’s love. In Colossians 1:13, also written by Paul, Christ is called in the NKJ version, ‘the Son of His love.” – Bruce…
NKJ Colossians 1:13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,
“A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT FORM IS USED IN THE REPORT OF THE HEAVENLY voice which addressed Jesus at His baptism and on the Mount of Transfiguration…
NKJ Mark 1:11 Then a voice came from heaven, “You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
NKJ Mark 9:7 And a cloud came and overshadowed them; and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!”
“BUT THE SENSE IS THE SAME, GOD THE FATHER PROCLAIMS JESUS AS ‘My Son, the Beloved.’ In one of the ancient versions of the N. T. (Old Syriac), the title is regularly rendered, ‘My Son and My Beloved,’ indicating two distinct titles. J. A. Robinson, a leading N. T. scholar, surveying the literary usage, concludes that ‘The Beloved or Beloved One may have been use as a messianic title among Jews before it came to be used by Christians with reference to Jesus.” –Bruce…
“THE GREEK TERM FOR ‘THE BELOVED’ (ἠγαπημένῳ [a-ga-pay-men-o], from the verb ἀγαπάω [a-ga-pa-o] – you probably know the word ἀγαπh. [a-ga-pay] – TAR) means ‘beloved,’ but often bears connotations of ‘only beloved’ in an exclusive sense. ‘His dearly loved Son’ picks up this connotation.” – NET Notes…
NET Ephesians 1:6 to the praise of the glory of his grace that he has freely bestowed on us in his dearly loved Son.
INTERESTING AND BEAUTIFUL, DON’T YOU THINK?…
THE TERM “BELOVED ONE” IS ONLY USED AS A TITLE OF CHRIST HERE in Ephesians 1:6…
“SINCE GOD THE FATHER CALLS HIS SON ‘THE BELOVED ONE,’ which is evidence of His love for Him, and since believers are in Christ, we are also the object of God’s love. We are ‘beloved ones’ to God!” – Hoehner/TAR…
AND DON’T MISS THAT LITTLE WORD “IN”… “God’s grace can be poured out on believers only because of what Christ has done for them. Hence, he bestows his grace on us because we are in his dearly loved Son.” – NET Notes (emphasis TAR)…
AND ALLOW ME TO ONCE MORE GET TECHNICAL AND GRAMMATICAL in order to point out an even deeper level of the text, one that I believe will enhance our appreciation of this great verse even more. “The preposition ‘in’ (ἐν [en]) denotes a close personal relationship, and the article with the participle individualizes it (“Beloved” is not a noun but a participle, very much in keeping with Paul’s Hebrew roots; for Hebrew students, cf. “redeemer” in Ruth 4:14 – TAR). The grace God has bestowed on us is intimately close relationship to the beloved One.” – Hoehner…
NKJ Ephesians 1:5-6 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved.
“TO THE PRAISE OF THE GLORY OF HIS GRACE,” an exceedingly beautiful phrase, to be sure, but what exactly does it mean? Here’s what one scholar thinks…
“THERE IS LITTLE DISTINCTION BETWEEN GOD’S LOVE AND HIS GRACE, except that the word ‘grace’ emphasizes its free and sovereign character. (God’s grace is commonly defined as unmerited favor, something God lovingly gives us even though we don’t deserve it. I like to define grace as provision, God’s abundant provision for whatever He requires of us. – TAR) God’s grace is His eternal and unconditioned good will which found decisive expression in the saving work of Christ. In His saving work, and in its becoming effective in the lives of believers, God is glorified: His grace is manifested as worthy of ‘glorious praise.’” – Bruce…
LISTEN AGAIN TO THE ESV TRANSLATION OF V. 6…
ESV Ephesians 1:6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
AND THE NIV…
NIV Ephesians 1:6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
AND FINALLY THE NLT…
NLT Ephesians 1:6 So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son.
“GLORIOUS GRACE,” CERTAINLY THAT IS HOW WE SHOULD CONSIDER God’s unmerited gift to us…
“GLORIOUS GRACE,” AS I MENTIONED, WOULD HAVE BEEN ANOTHER appropriate and excellent title for this message…
IN PSALM 66:2 OF THE ESV, THE WHOLE EARTH IS SUMMONED TO GIVE GOD “glorious praise”…
ESV Psalm 66:2 sing the glory of his name; give to him glorious praise!
IN MOST OTHER TRANSLATIONS PSALM 66:2 READS…
NAS Psalm 66:2 Sing the glory of His name; Make His praise glorious.
“IF THIS EXPRESSION WAS THE FITTING RESPONSE TO GOD’S ACTS OF deliverance in Israel’s national and personal life as the psalmist celebrates, it is supremely fitting as a response to His delivering act in Christ. This note of glorious praise is repeatedly sounded throughout Paul’s introduction in Ephesians 1:3-14.” – Bruce…
AND LISTEN TO THESE LOFTY WORDS FROM AN OLD AND REVERED SCHOLAR: “’Unto the praise of the glory of His grace’; so that He may receive from His adoring creatures the praise due His glory, His own manifested character, manifested in this form of entrancing beauty, His grace. It is that grace in regard to which He accepted us in His Beloved One; making us one with Him, as limb is one with head, as bride is one with bridegroom, as white is one with snow, and so giving us real part and lot in Christ’s own welcome to the Father’s heart.” – Moule/TAR…
WHAT A GREAT MESSAGE FROM THE GREAT BOOK OF EPHESIANS! I think you will agree that it is indeed a beautiful message. It tells us about the character and purpose of our wonderful God, and it tells us about the wonderful things our wonderful God has done for us in Christ. It is a message that should humble us, and at the same time cause us to rejoice…
“IN THE BELOVED” WE HAVE OUR REDEMPTION. “Redemption” is my working title of our study for next week, Lord willing…
HAVE A BLESSED WEEK, AND ALLOW ME TO ENCOURAGE YOU TO REMEMBER often, we are walking this week and forever with the “Beloved” Jesus! We are “Accepted in the Beloved”…
BEAUTIFUL!
– Professor Thomas A. Rohm
