To the Praise of the Glory of His Grace

Passage: Passage: Ephesians 1:6

“…to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.”

Few people give much thought to the idea that salvation was designed to bring praise to an aspect of God’s character.  As we noted in a prior devotional, God could have made salvation work literally any way which He desired to make it work. It didn’t have to be by means of election and predestination, it could have been set up to function in any way imaginable.  God being Who He is, there are many more of those possibilities than you and I could come up with; yet God chose the method Paul outlines for us here.

“Praise” is from the Greek word meaning: “praise, commendation, approval; or referencing a praiseworthy thing”.  Romans 2:29 uses the word to refer to one who desires the approval of God, not of men.  1 Cor. 4:5 uses it in the same sense; while 2 Cor. 8:18 implies the same kind of idea with regard to the approval of the Gospel upon one’s doctrine.  Phil 1:11 speaks of the fruit that comes of Salvation as being to the glory and praise of God.  Phil 4:8 speaks of those things that are “praiseworthy” and commends our attention to those things.  Peter speaks of the trials and afflictions believers face as ultimately demonstrating character that is to the praise and glory of God in 1 Pet. 1:7. 

God’s glory speaks of His splendor, of His grandeur and of that which is inherently magnificent.  In the Bible, glory is an exclusive attribute of God.  It is never, never an attribute that is given to men, except as men reflect or demonstrate the glory of God.  God’s glory is His character, His essential attributes, what He is, in and of Himself.  This is true both of those attributes that man cannot share, and of the attributes in which man can share, but which God demonstrates to an unequalled extent.

Grace is one of those glorious characteristics.  It is one of the so-called “transitive” attributes of God, in that it an attribute in which men can share.  Man can be gracious.  When he is gracious, he is emulating the characteristic of God that we know as graciousness.  He does this knowingly or unknowingly; but he does it nonetheless.

God is gracious, however, both in ways, and to extents that man is not and cannot be.  This does not mean that man’s acts of graciousness are worthless; but only that they are not the supreme examples of that character quality.  That supreme example falls to God to provide.

This He has done in salvation.  Paul says that He has done that both in the fact of gratuitous salvation, and in the method in which He deigned to provide that salvation.  This we shall discuss at length next time.  Salvation, by election and predestination, is to the praise of the glory of His grace in that it is the supreme example of that characteristic of God.  So says Paul, and so we echo his judgment!