Ephesians 1:3-6

-spiritual = pneumatikos = pertaining to the spirit; spiritual thing, person
-F.F. Bruce “Even if they live on earth in mortal bodies, they can enter into the good of their heavenly inheritance here and now through the ministry of the Spirit.”

I. We were chosen in Chirst
-chosen = eklego = elect
-J.I. Packer "People see the Bible teaches man’s responsibility for his actions; they do not see (man indeed cannot see) how this is consistent with the sovereign Lordship of God over those actions. They are not content to let the two truths live side by side as they do in the Scriptures, but jump to the conclusion that, in order to uphold the biblical truth of human responsibility, they are bound to reject the equally biblical and equally true doctrine of divine sovereignty, and to explain away the great number of texts that teach it.”

a. It was before the foundation of the world.
-foundation = katabole = beginning, creation
b. It was to make us holy and blameless.
-holy = hagios = set apart, pure, saint, holy
-blameless = amomos = without blemish, spotless
i. Positional
ii. Practical

II. We were adopted in love.
-predestined = pororizo = to decide from the beginning, to mark out a boundary beforehand.
-Rom. 9:25-26
-kind intention = eudokia = good will, pleasure, favor

III. We were freely given grace in the Beloved
-bestowed = charitoo = to bestow on freely, to endow with grace

Walter Liefeld “Today’s remarkable flow of new information about our physical universe, which should increase our confidence in and awe of God as Creator, may lead others to think of heaven as a distant, irrelevant place with little connection to earth and the visible universe. Ephesians shows that there is a greater universe of space and time than we might imagine. Heaven above and the age to come may exist in a different dimension, but the heavenly realms are real and integral parts of God’s creation and are presently experientially accessible to Christians, in Christ.”