He Answer to No One

Ephesians 1:11b

Last time we focused on the first part of Ephesians 1:11, namely, our inheritance. Today we look at the next portion of this verse. We will focus in on His purpose for predestining us, and His will.

Verse eleven says, “in Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.” We can see clearly that this verse is saying that we were predestined according to His purpose.

We focused on our inheritance last time, which is our inheritance obtained through Jesus’ death and resurrection from the dead. This inheritance only exists when we are saved. Therefore we can see from the first part of verse eleven that clearly this predestination that Paul speaks of is referring to those who are saved.

God has purposed that we would be predestined to salvation, to obtain an inheritance. I don’t believe it is necessary to dive too deeply into this since I already wrote an article on it, but I believe this verse solidifies further how unworthy and undeserving we are to be His adopted children, blessed with an inheritance that He has obtained for us. God predetermined that we would be His through no work of our own.

We don’t know why He predestined us to be His adopted children, gifted with an eternal inheritance, but it is what His Word says. The next part of the verse even states that He “works all things according to the counsel of His will.” This again further solidifies that He saved us because He chose to. There was no quota He had to reach. There was no test that we had to pass. There was no hesitation on His part, no one had to twist His arm into predestining any of us to salvation. God is the Alpha and Omega. He does not follow anyone’s rules but His own. He decides, determines, and does. He is not bound by anything because He created everything. His sovereignty is full. There is no one He must answer to, no one He must explain Himself to, because He is the authority. No one has any power, ability, or strength unless He allows it. No one can do anything unless He wills it.

His will is not one that will always make sense to us. He wills things that we cannot comprehend. He allows the devil to attack us for His own reasons. The devil believes that he can get one over on God but he can’t. The devil thought Job would curse God and die and yet not only did he not curse God and die, but he grew closer to God. He was able to experience God’s power like never before. Job was already known to be a man who feared God, and yet His fear surely grew greater after He experienced the power of God. And not only did Job’s relationship with God grow closer, but millions of people have been comforted, strengthened, challenged, and encouraged by Job’s life. God’s will is so much higher and greater than what we can understand. Who are we to question His will? He answers to no one but Himself.

We should not create in our minds what we want to be true or try and make God’s will into something we can understand, just because it will help us feel better. Thus far in Ephesians we have statement after statement, verse after verse, about how God chose and predestined us. Mankind wants to be able to understand everything, but we ought to humble ourselves and trust the One who graciously loved us enough to send His Son to die for us, rise, and obtain an eternal inheritance for us. God will never let us down; He is always worthy of our trust. We can trust what His Word says; we can trust the counsel of His will.

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