Happiness in the Measure of Such Obedience
A. B. Grosart, LL. D. Ephesians 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance… Is that no revelation of the character of the God of the universe? No revelation? I could shut my Bible, and from creation, from the meanest flower that blows, up to the stars that hang like lamps before the great white throne, find infinite proofs that my God is also my Father. Exactly so; I cannot tell how free will, choice, contingency accord with predestination, election, fore-ordination, substitution. I do not feel that I am called upon to do so. But, as we have seen, our own consciousness attests the former, while the Word of God recognizes and addresses them, recognizes and addresses man as free to think, feel, will, choose, reject. Equally does the Word of God affirm the latter. I therefore accept them also, and can defer knowing how the All-wise harmonizes them, until He is pleased to reveal them to me. Nay more, I have deepest belief that even as the physical world is grasped and girded by its great laws, so must the other and grander world of mind have underneath it — like the granite base of the everlasting hills; above it — like the dome of the sky — kindred laws. These laws I recognize and accept in predestination, election, fore-ordination, substitution. Remove the law of gravitation, and many a fair star "flaming on the forehead of the sky," yea, the big sun, and the whole stupendous universe, would rush to ruin, and wander off from the throne of God. Similarly, I believe, remove the laws of predestination, and you snap the many linked chain that binds man to God. And just as I have the power to violate God's great laws, to my destruction, so may! His laws in the plan of redemption, equally to my destruction. Obey His physical laws, and until the appointed hour I live. Obey His spiritual laws; accept "eternal life" according to His predestinated way, even in and from God the Son, as offered in the gospel — and I am saved. (A. B. Grosart, LL. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: WEB: in whom also we were assigned an inheritance, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who works all things after the counsel of his will;