To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved. Ephesians 1:6
As a Christian was witnessing to one of her friends, the friend spoke about how hard she had tried to please God, and concluded ‘I am afraid that God would never accept me’. The Christian replied, ‘No, God never can and never will accept you for yourself’. In response to the look of astonishment from her friend, the Christian continued, ‘But God has already accepted His beloved Son, so if we are in Him, God must accept us’. It would be difficult to make today’s text much simpler than that! Being accepted in the Beloved is one of the great spiritual blessings that accompany our salvation.
The Greek word that is translated ‘accepted’ in our text is used only one other place in the New Testament. It is used by the angel Gabriel in his salutation to Mary: ‘Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women’ (Luke 1:28). The term ‘highly favoured’ is the same as ‘accepted’. Surely no woman was ever more highly favoured than Mary, who God chose to be the human vessel through whom the incarnation of the Son of God occurred. None of us will ever be more highly favoured than that! But, we are highly favoured, or accepted, just as she was. And the basis of that acceptance is the love of God the Father for God the Son.
It is no coincidence that seven times in the New Testament, God refers to the Lord Jesus as ‘the Beloved’, or ‘My beloved Son’. That love between the Father and the Son is unique, because it is the only love that is eternal. That great truth was expressed by the Lord Jesus as He prepared to go to Gethsemane, on the night before His crucifixion: ‘Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me: for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world’ (John 17:24).
The hymn writer Horatius Bonar captures the essence of our text with these words from his lovely hymn: ‘So near, so very near to God, I cannot nearer be; Yet in the person of His Son, I am as near as He. So dear, so very dear to God, More dear I cannot be; The love wherewith He loves the Son: Such is His love to me!’ This means, for example, that the stammering prayer of a new-born believer is just as accepted by God as the eloquent prayer of the seasoned saint. In all of our spiritual exercise, whatever we do, or try to do, for God, it is not our qualification that God receives, but the qualification of His Son.
Dear Christian, do all that you can for your Lord today, never fearing His disapproval. He is already delighted with you because He delights in His Son. – Jim MacIntosh