en. The great work of redemption is illuminated by the
thought of the will and meaning of God therein; for example, we read in
Chapter i. that He 'hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in
Christ, according as He hath chosen us in Him,' and immediately after we
read that He 'has predestinated us unto the adoption of children by
Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of His will.' Soon after, we
hear that 'He hath revealed to us the mystery of His will, according to
His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself'; and that our
predestination to an inheritance in Christ is 'according to the purpose
of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will.'

Not only so, but the motive or reason for the divine action in the gift
of Christ is brought out in a rich variety of expression as being 'the
praise of the glory of His grace' (1-6), or 'that He might gather
together in one all things in Christ' (1-10), or that 'we should be to
the praise of His glory' (1-12), or that 'unto the principalities and
powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold
wisdom of God.'

In like manner our text follows a sublime statement of what has been
bestowed upon men in Jesus, with an equally sublime insight into the
divine purpose of thereby showing 'the exceeding riches of His grace.'
Such heights are not for our unaided traversing; it is neither reverent
nor safe to speculate, and still less to dogmatise, concerning the
meaning of the divine acts, but here, at all events, we have, as I
believe, not a man making unwarranted assertions about God's purposes,
but God Himself by a man, letting us see so far into the depths of Deity
as to know the very deepest meaning of His very greatest acts, and when
God speaks, it is neither reverent nor safe to refuse to listen.

I. The purpose of God in Christ is the display of His grace.

Of course we cannot speak of motives in the divine mind as in ours; they
imply a previous state of indecision and an act of choice, from which
comes the slow emerging of a resolve like that of the moon from the sea.
A given end being considered by us desirable, we then cast about for
means to secure it, which again implies limitation of power. Still we
can speak of God's motives, if only we understand, as this epistle puts
it so profoundly, that His 'is an eternal purpose which He purposed in
Himself,' which never began to be formed, and was not formed by reason
of anything ext