Grace superabounds to the church-age believer.Back to Eph 1:7
Eph 1:7-8 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, 8 which He lavished upon us.
Last week we saw what riches are given to the church and also the reason for this being the dispensation of richness – Israel’s rejection of her Messiah.
/John 12:48"He who rejects Me, and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day. \
This therefore becomes a record of the future judgment of those who reject Jesus Christ as saviour.
The verb “reject” is very important in this verse.
/“He who rejects me” – present active participle of a)qetew[atheteo] [a = negative; qetew= from tiqhmi[tithemi] which means to appoint, to place, to assign, allocate] – It means to “not be appointed.” \
Those who do not appoint Christ are those who refuse to assign Him His proper place, which is Messiah. The Celebrity of the universe, the promised One to Israel, the God/Man, and Israel’s true King.
He is talking to Israel, therefore instead of using a negative with pisteuw[pisteuo = lack of faith] He uses a)qetew [atheteo] to indicate that the Jews reject Jesus Christ by failing to assign to Him His proper place of Messiahship.
This is why Jesus wept over Jerusalem. He knew the consequences of their rejection of Him. This city, that as God He always loved, and as man He always adored, would be completely destroyed and most of these, by some estimates 3 million people, would suffer greatly in death and in some cases even resort to cannibalism to survive death when the Romans cut off the city’s supply.
/“and does not receive” -- present active participle of lambanw, [lambano] which means here with the negative to reject a gift. So they reject the Father’s gift by failing to assign to Him His proper place of Messiahship, the son of David.\
Because of this rejection, salvation and the greatest riches of grace is given to the church.
All of God’s riches have to come by means of grace. We originate nothing that warrants or merits the riches of God.
/Grace is the magnificent expression of God’s unfailing love, which is His policy of unmerited favor bestowed on fallen, sinful humanity.\
Since God’s unfailing love is eternal, grace as an expression of that love existed in eternity past. Therefore grace preceded all human life, all function of human volition, and all the works of mankind.
/Since this is true man’s existence, unfallen or fallen, cannot influence grace.\
/This antecedent grace is, therefore, the expression of God’s love from eternity past that offers a relationship to mankind in time and eternity, apart from human merit, human works, or any other human resources.\
Antecedent grace emphasizes that from eternity past the unfailing love of God designed the divine solutions for every situation man will ever face in this life, without exception.
Antecedent grace and unfailing love, as a part of the divine decree, are the initiatives of the plan of God for man. This is how God introduced Himself to you and this is how God continues to deal with you throughout the CWL.
Again, when you think of grace think of providence and that providence is to unbelievers as well.
/The grace of God provides for mankind from birth through death. This means everything that man needs to stay alive as well as the redemption solution for new birth.\
Again in: /John 12:48"He who rejects Me, and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day. \
If it is the words that are going to judge the unbeliever than it is without contestation that the gospel has been presented to every man – that is the redemption solution to man’s spiritual death.
God offers throughout the life of every human being a personal relationship with Him through His impersonal unconditional love as expressed by His policy of grace and revealed through the cross of Christ.
Because of God’s unfailing impersonal love, everyone has an opportunity for that personal relationship with God through faith alone in Christ alone.
The wealth of grace is a description, then, of that perfect plan.
The wealth or the abundance of grace is the source of cancellation of our sins on the cross. The pattern is set in salvation and there is no blessing in time or in eternity apart from this principle — God’s grace. Under grace everything depends on who and what God is.
/Translation: “In whom [in Christ] we keep on having the redemption through his blood, the cancellation of sins, according to the wealth of his grace.”\
Eph 1:7-8 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, 8 which He lavished upon us.
/“which” is an ablative singular from the relative pronoun o(j. It should be translated “From which.” The antecedent of this relative pronoun is grace, and therefore we can translate it “From which grace.”\
/“He lavished” is the aorist active indicative of perisseuw[perisseuo] which means to have over and above, to super-abound, to confer a thing abundantly on one.\
This is a culminative aorist in which the event is presented in its entirety but regarded from the standpoint of existing results.
/The existing results: we are liberated from the slavemarket of sin. God the Father planned in eternity past everything we would ever need in grace. \
Therefore from this grace God the Father has caused to superabound toward us these things through the daily function of perceiving and metabolizing Bible doctrine.
It is only through the word of God that you continually see and are reminded of the superabounding grace of God.
The active voice: God the Father is the subject of the verb and therefore He produces the action. God the Father centers His plan around the only celebrity for the plan of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
So this picks up the work of the Father, delineated what He has planned for the believer priest through the person of Jesus Christ. The indicative mood is the reality of grace superabounding to the believer through the daily function of GAP.
/“upon us” — the preposition e)ij[eis] plus the accusative plural of e)gw[ego] = “toward us.” The superabundance of grace is directed toward all believers and understood by all super-grace believers.\
Eis indicates the direction of the flow of the abundant grace of God. The grace of God is directed toward all mankind, but it is lavished or superabounded toward believers and even more so toward super-grace believers.
The grace package of salvation cannot be destroyed either by God, angels, nor any man including the saved one.
/1 John 2:2 and He Himself is the propitiation [God is satisfied] for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. \
Just like the presence of Christ in the world demands a decision either for or against Him, so also the presence of grace in the plan of God demands a positive or negative response from the believer.
In this way, grace can be your greatest asset or it can be an occupational hazard.
/Rejection of grace always results in reversionism which is described as falling from grace. \
Gal 3:1 You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?
Gal 3:2 This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?
Gal 3:3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
Gal 5:1 It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.
/ a. Freedom from the penalty of sin – cross of Christ. b. Freedom from the power of the OSN – plan of God. c. Freedom from the presence of sin in eternity – resurrection.\
Libertydoes not mean the kind of life that we live, but rather it means the way in which we live it. If we live in grace then we are in the sphere of freedom and liberty. If we live in legalism, religion, and the energy of the flesh then we are in the sphere of slavery.
Gal 5:2 Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you.
The Galatians were being taught by the Judiasers that circumcision was the means of salvation. Paul is bringing up the issue, is it by grace or is it by works. In today’s legalistic churches there many substitutions for this and one of the biggest is the ritual of baptism.
Gal 5:3 And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law.
Gal 5:4 You have been severed from Christ [if you now believe that salvation is anything else than grace], you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.
Heb 12:15 See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled;
Heb 12:16 that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal.
Heb 12:17 For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.
Salvation is not received with tears. Esau never found the place of grace so that he might change his mind concerning Christ.
The plan of God cannot be achieved with tears either. You cannot plead with God to fulfill the plan of God for you, rather you have to exploit grace and then you will fulfill the plan of God for your life.
2 Cor 12:7 And because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me — to keep me from exalting myself!
2 Cor 12:8 Concerning this I entreated the Lord three times that it might depart from me.
You could imagine Paul almost in tears here, begging the Lord to take away the thorn. That is asking for God to fulfill what He has asked you to fulfill through your own positive volition.
2 Cor 12:9 And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
2 Cor 12:10 Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
Weakness is not living in sin and claiming you’re strong because of grace. Weakness here is knowing that you cannot fulfill the plan of God in your own energy or human viewpoint and therefore you have to rely on God’s grace.
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