That Glorious Generosity

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     "He planned, in his program of love, that we should be adopted as his own children through Jesus Christ -- that we might learn to praise that glorious generosity of his which has made us welcome in the everlasting love he bears toward the Beloved" (Ephesians 1:4, 5).

     1.The plan. It is a source of great assurance that we are part of an infinite design. God did not bring us to our present state by a trial-and-error method, or as the result of a divine experiment. The earth is not a laboratory in which God tests theories, but part of a universe specifically designed for those of us who inhabit it. The community of saints is not an afterthought or an expedient but a fellowship designed for our spiritual growth toward maturity. It is obvious that the omnipotent one will not allow his plan to fail. As the apostle wrote to the Philippians, "I feel sure that the one who has begun a good work in you will go on developing it until the day of Jesus Christ." We are not part of a fly-by-night venture doomed to explode in disappointment.

     2. The purpose. The relationship of creator to created can be quite mechanical and even cold, but when God made

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man in his own image he envisioned having a family. God is love and love must be shared. It is active, not passive, and seeks a response that is warm and reciprocal. God could not truly be a Father without offspring, and he purposed in love that we should be adopted as his children.

     When we think of adoption, we automatically think of legal proceedings in which an outside authority transfers a child from one guardian to another. This is not a correct representation of what happened in our case, for God simply accepted us in his Beloved. That is why the process is sometimes referred to as adoption and sometimes as a new birth. Adoption has to do with God's action on our behalf, birth is our response through delivery into the family circle.

     3. The praise. Man is a disciple, a learner. One of our mistakes is in speaking of one who became a disciple at a certain time, as if this is a one-action proposition which is over with the initiation. This is not correct, for one is always a disciple while he lives. It is a perpetual relationship. Our responsibility is to learn to praise, and the object of our praise is God's glorious generosity, the best description of the word "grace."

     It is very difficult for those of us who are caught up in the human predicament to understand the wonders of grace, because we are selfish and restrained. We try to water down the concept and dilute it until we can explain and confine it, because our nature is opposed to it. In spite of this the scriptures break through our mental barriers with such passages as these, and we catch a glimpse of generosity so free and unbounded that it can only be described as glorious. This is the subject of our greatest praise.

     4. The perfection. God's plan reaches its culmination in the welcome extended to us to share in eternal love. This is possible because we are justified through grace. To justify means to declare or pronounce one guiltless. We are not guiltless because of anything we have done, or because of anything we have abstained from doing. We are simply counted as guiltless because of that grace which accepts those who cease to trust in themselves and their own righteousness and trust unreservedly in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

     When one is in Christ God does not see him as a guilt-laden sinner, for his own sin has been laid upon Christ, and atonement was made for it at Calvary. God beholds Christ and his sinlessness, and if we are in him his righteousness is imputed unto us. We have none of our own, but that eternal love which is bestowed upon the Beloved becomes our heritage as well because we are in him. All praise for the glorious generosity which makes this possible.