Eph 1:6 In Praise of His Grace

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Jun 13, 2025, 7:41:27 AM6/13/25

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In Praise of His Grace

Eph 1:6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

Whenever we do something, it reveals something about ourselves. God's redemption of mankind reveals His character of graciousness. This revealing is known as glorifying or glory. The idea of "grace" is the attitude of freely giving to the undeserving. This is not to say that such giving must be unconditional or arbitrary for such giving to be consider gracious. But rather that such conditions or requirements are not viewed as payments for the gift as if one earned the gift by meeting such requirements.

For example, if a man decided to give a wheelchair to everyone one who was lame in his town, being lame would be a requirement to receive a wheelchair. If one happens to become lame, or puposely makes himself lame just to get a wheelchair, such lameness is not viewed as payment for the wheelchair. Similarly if I hand a free gift to someone with only the requiement that they reach out and take it, their reaching out and taking it is not viewed as work that they do to earn the gift, as if by reaching out they are paying for it. They cannot say, "You are not really gracious and the gift is not really free, for I had to do all that work in reaching out and taking it!" That would be foolish.

Salvation is a free gift. But you have to reach out and take it. We have to put our faith in Christ in order to receive the gift of righteousness. But such faith it not reckoned as a work, as it is written, "Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts (believes) God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness." Romans 4:4,5

Thus God's graciousness in no way is nullified by our cooperation in receiving the gift. In fact, if we were just puppets, then God's gift would not really be view as a gift, nor would giving it be considered gracious. For then it would not have been a matter of who is deserving or undeserving, for everyone would be simply viewed as a puppet, and giving would be simply a matter of sovereignty having nothing to do with graciousness. So if He created us simply as puppets, He logically could not reveal his love, nor his graciousness, or his justice through us. For He would be simply viewed as playing with puppets.