You’ve most likely heard the gap illustration of salvation. Just to refresh your memory, it goes like this.

God created man to live in relationship with him. We stood with him, walked with him. Then Adam and Eve sinned and caused a great void to open up between man and God. There was no way we could cross that void. It was a deep canyon with God on one side and man on the other.

Jesus gave the solution by crossing the canyon, something we could not do. He came among us and lived and died on the cross, paying the penalty for our sins. The cross then became the bridge between God and man, giving us the means to cross the canyon and reach God. Through the cross we can find God and salvation.

Let me suggest an alternate picture.

God created man to live in relationship with him. We stood with him, walked with him. Then Adam and Eve sinned and all creation fell as though down a huge cliff. We stood at the bottom of that cliff with God at the top. Nothing we do would enable us to climb the cliff.

Jesus presented the solution by descending the cliff. He stepped down from high above and lived among fallen humanity. He died on the cross, paying the penalty for our sins. Through the cross he draws us to himself. Jesus then ascends back to God at the top of the cliff, taking us with him.

The difference in these two illustrations is enormous. In both of them God is the one who makes salvation possible. Man is helpless to make a way to God. But in the first God only makes salvation possible, not certain – and only in a world different from our own. In the first illustration Jesus creates a bridge we must walk across to be saved, but this ignores man’s inability to walk toward God. Dead in our sins, we neither have the desire nor the ability to approach God. We are enemies in rebellion against him. The first illustration is truly semi-Pelagian in imagining some ability remains in man so that he can walk to God. Perhaps some who present this illustration would include the Arminian notion of prevenient grace, the belief that God has enabled people to respond to him. This would take the illustration out of the realm of Pelagian heresy but it still leaves the person with an ability the Bible says we simply do not have.

The second illustration does a better job of presenting the biblical picture. It is not perfect, no illustration can contain everything, but it shows that man is not capable of any of the work to reach God.

God brings us to himself. He descends the cliff, does what is necessary to bring us into righteousness, then wraps his arms around us and carries us with him back into Heaven. This is what it means to be saved, to be found in the arms of Christ when he has returned to his heavenly home. “But wait!” you say “He was raised 2,000 years ago! I was not there, I could not have been risen with him!” Ahh but you were, dear saint. Thus we are told a few times in the New Testament, as at Ephesians 2:6, that God has raised us up with him and ​seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. In an event that is both very real and very mysterious, all the saints of God were raised with Jesus Christ. He carried us from the fallen world to the throne of his Father. This is the only way our salvation could take place.

Perhaps I should make some tracts.

I’m reading Mark Dever’s Nine Marks of a Healthy Church. Mark six is a healthy understanding of church membership. He encourages churches to keep the membership list current, including those people who are active, trimming those who are voluntarily inactive. A person who is involuntarily inactive would be someone sick or unable to leave their home for some reason.

Here is part of his argument:

Membership is the church’s corporate endorsement of a person’s salvation. Yet how can a congregation honestly testify that someone invisible to it is faithfully running the race? 

Preacher, when you exhort your people to do evangelism, be careful to instruct them in the use of Scripture. The Bible is our primary witnessing tool. Tracts, evangelistic presentations, and the testimony of personal experience *might* have their place, but they will never replace or supersede the Bible. Please, please don’t leave your people thinking that relating their own experience of salvation is a more effective, more important method of evangelism than sharing the Bible.

And while on the subject of evangelism, never promise people that if they follow a particular method it will result in a definite conversion. Salvation is in God’s hands, not ours, and he has made no guarantees.

I spent part of last night watching one of God’s children slip closer to eternity. At this point the lady is still with us but her body is slowly failing. A clinical diagnosis would point to several ailments she has had lately along with her old age. The real cause of her death, however, is sin.

Death, that great enemy, that old intruder on life, that fruit of the fall creates a reality that will be experienced by every living thing. But for Christians death gives us tragic hope. The point when we can shed ourselves of sinful flesh. It says something about how pervasive sin is in our lives that it takes death to completely rip it from us. Sin is conquered but we still haul its corpse around and only death will remove the corpse from us.

This is why for the saints it is not death to die. That old enemy gives us hope of a life free from sin. Death is the curse of the fall but death is also promise for believers.

Sovereign Grace Music has a wonderful song called It Is Not Death to Die on their CD Come Weary Saints. The words of the song describe Christian death very well.

It is not death to die
To leave this weary road
And join the saints who dwell on high
Who’ve found their home with God

It is not death to close
The eyes long dimmed by tears
And wake in joy before Your throne
Delivered from our fears

O Jesus, conquering the grave
Your precious blood has power to save
Those who trust in You
Will in Your mercy find
That it is not death to die

It is not death to fling
Aside this earthly dust
And rise with strong and noble wing
To live among the just

It is not death to hear
The key unlock the door
That sets us free from mortal years
To praise You evermore
O Jesus, conquering the grave
Your precious blood has power to save
Those who trust in You
Will in Your mercy find
That it is not death to die

One of my very favorite songs, unfortunately I have trouble finding anyone singing it. But that doesn’t stop me from singing it to myself! And now, dear reader, I sing it to you.

I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew
He moved my soul to seek Him, seeking me.
It was not I that found O Savior true;
No, I was found of Thee.

I find, I walk, I love, but oh, the whole
Of love is but my answer, Lord, to Thee!
For Thou wert long beforehand with my soul
Always Thou lovest me.

Thou didst reach forth Thy hand and mine enfold;
I walked and sank not on the storm vexed sea
‘Twas not so much that I on Thee took hold,
As Thou, dear Lord, on me.

I find, I walk, I love, but oh, the whole
Of love is but my answer, Lord, to Thee!
For Thou wert long beforehand with my soul
Always Thou lovest me.

You can find the music and a demo track here.

My sermon on Ephesians 1:4-6, referred to previously, is now online at the Immanuel Baptist website.

I’ve just recently started preaching through Ephesians at my church and Sunday I’ll be tackling Ephesians 1:4-6. Due to the differing opinions over the interpretation of these verses, Sunday could be an interesting day. There will be more such days by the time we are through with Ephesians, though most of the landmines are past by the end of chapter two.

Below are my notes about the text itself. These are not sermon notes, just some thoughts about the verses. The sermon audio should be online sometime Monday. Please pray for all to go well with the service.

Ephesians 1:4-6

4 just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before him in love, 5 having predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ into him, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace with which he blessed us in the beloved.

v4
he [the Father] chose us in him [Christ]. The Father did the choosing and gave us over to Christ. Paul matches exactly what John records Jesus saying in John 6:44 (no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.), John 6:37 (all that the Father gives me will come to me…), John 6:65 (no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father) and John 17:24 (they also, whom you have given me…) etc. The possible challenge is John 15:16 (You did not choose me, but I chose you). Jesus said he did the choosing. Two possible responses: 1, Jesus is speaking in the sense of the triune God. I, God, chose you. Or 2, Jesus is speaking to his disciples and the application might be limited to them so he is saying he chose these disciples whereas in salvation the Father chooses who will be saved. Either way the point is clear that individuals do not do the choosing.

He chose us before the foundation of the world. Various expressions like this seem to reinforce the point that our being chosen has nothing to do with us. God loved us before we ever could have done anything to merit his love. He chose us before we could have shown any reason to be chosen. The foreknowledge view seeks to get around this but in doing so it defeats the purpose of the text. What else would words like this mean if not that God chose us without anything in us being a consideration?

He chose us to be holy and blameless in love. This speaks highly of the need for a holy life. Verse 5 shows that adoption is one of the goals of our having been chosen but Paul first tells us that we were chosen to be holy and blameless. In Exodus 19:6 God told the Israelites that they were to be a holy nation. In 1 Peter 2:9 this gets applied to the church. 1 Peter 2:9 further shows that this way of being is so that we would glorify God – proclaiming his excellencies – a point also drawn out in Ephesians 1:6. Recognizing that God chose us for salvation and holds our salvation secure is not a license to sin. Those who are his are his and will fight sin. Sanctification is, as Charles Hodge puts it, “the only evidence of election.”

We are to be holy and blameless in love, reminding us that holiness does not mean being a Pharisee. We are to be loving people, showing the love of the Lord as we live a holy life for the glory of God.

v5

God predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ. First he chooses the people then he predestines them. Choosing them singles them out. Predestining them for some action assures the action will take place. They are predestined for adoption, so all who are chosen will be adopted into God. Specifically, they are adopted into the Father through Jesus Christ. Thus Jesus says in John 14:6: “No one comes to the Father except through me.” There are several reasons why we can only access the Father through Christ. One reason is that the Father has chosen to extend adoption only through Jesus. Even if a person could live a perfectly holy life, always free from all sin, they would still need Jesus in order to be adopted into the Father. Only in Christ can we address God as Father.

God’s choice to predestine certain individuals is based on the purpose of his will. This reinforces what we saw in v4, that his choosing is not based on something within humans. Someone advocating the foreknowledge view might say, “Yes, according to the purpose of his will, and the purpose of his will is to choose all those he sees choosing him.” But that is not supported by the text and, again, would weaken the force of the text. Salvation is in God and from God and given to those God has chosen. According to the purpose of his will means given to those determined by God, not to those who have determined God for themselves. Boice says, “One problem is that an election like that [foreknowledge] is not really election. In such a reconstruction God does not preordain an individual to anything; the individual actually ordains himself.”

v6

This verse reveals the third and highest purpose of God’s choosing: to the praise of his glorious grace. Why are we chosen for holiness and blamelessness? Why are we adopted? So that we might praise God and he be glorified. The particular attribute of his character that is uplifted is his glorious grace. God’s actions draw attention to different aspects of God’s character and nature. In Romans 9 we learn that those not saved by God are used by God to glorify his holiness and justice. Here we learn that those saved by God are used to glorify his grace and mercy. Salvation is not simply a matter of making my life better and keeping me from Hell. Salvation is a matter of glorifying the grace of God. Yes, God loves us. Yes, he desires that which is good for us. But we are not the center of God’s affections. We were created for God’s glory and told to worship and serve him and no other. We are to be God-centered. Likewise God is God-centered and not man-centered. We lift him up, he lifts up himself.

Finally, Paul says that this grace is given to us in the Beloved. This is certainly a reference to Jesus, he is the beloved through whom comes the gift of saving grace. Time and again in these three verses Paul stresses salvation as a gift entirely of God’s work and grace. This is not a response to those who would challenge his monergistic soteriology but is rather a reminder to the believer of how good and gracious God is and how great our debt is to him. These verses are praise and though they are deeply theological, Paul assumes his readers will be on the same page as him. Monergism is assumed, not argued for. And God is praised for giving us such great grace through Jesus Christ our Lord.