Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1731
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, July 15, 1883
“He has made us accepted in the Beloved.” Ephesians 1:6.
A FEW Sabbath mornings ago I spoke to you upon those memorable words of the great Father, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” [The Voice from the Cloud and the Voice of the Beloved—Sermon #1727.] We now go a step farther and see how the love of God to His beloved Son overflows and runs like a river of life to all those who are in Christ Jesus. To Jesus He says, “This is My beloved Son,” and then He turns to all who are in union with Him and says, “These, also, are My beloved for His sake.” As Believers we are assured by the text that we are “accepted in the Beloved,” to the praise of the glory of God’s Grace! Why is that peculiar title used here? It might have been said we are accepted in Christ, or accepted in the Mediator! There must be some motive for giving Him this special name in this place.
The motive is declared to be that we may praise the glory of Divine Grace. God did not need a beloved when He made us His beloved—His heart was not pining for an object—His affections were not lonely and desolate. His only-begotten Son was His delight and there was room enough in Him for all the Father’s love! It was we that needed to be loved and so the Beloved is mentioned that we may remember the unselfishness of Divine Grace. He makes us His beloved, but He already had a Beloved. We are also reminded that we are “accepted in the Beloved” to let us know that God has not shifted His love—His first Beloved is still His Beloved. We have not supplanted His dear Son, nor even diverted a beam of love from Him.
The Lord has called us beloved who were not so and made us a people who were not a people. But He has not withdrawn a grain of love from Jesus, whom He still calls, “My Elect, in whom My soul delights.” All the infinite love of God still flows to Jesus and then to us in Him. It pleased the Father that to Him a fullness of love should be given, that out of it we might each one receive. Gods love to us is His love to His Son flowing in a hundred channels. For His sake He makes the wedding feast and we are the happy guests who sit at the table. Not for our sakes is this done, but for Jesus’ sake, that so it might be all of Grace. His perpetual acceptance with God is our acceptance—that nothing legal, nothing of which we might boast—might be mingled with the work of Sovereign Grace. We are “accepted in the Beloved.”
Do you not love that sweet title? Is it not the highest quality of the acceptance, that it comes through such an One? He is beloved in the highest conceivable degree by the Father and in this you imitate the great God, for to you, also, the Lord Jesus is altogether lovely. He is your Beloved as well as God’s Beloved—and this is one proof that you are ac-cepted—for all who truly love the Son are approved by the Father. Thus says the Scripture—“Because he has set His love upon Me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high because he has known My name.”
Is Christ your Beloved? Then, as He is the Father’s Beloved, you and the Father have evidently come to a sweet agreement! You have come to look at things from the same standpoint as the glorious Jehovah. The Lord and you evidently have a mutual interest in one common Person—the Incarnate God. Your recognition of Christ as your Beloved is thus a sure proof that you are accepted in the Beloved! Do you see this? It is because He is the Father’s Beloved that the Father loves you in Him. And because He is your Beloved, therefore you have an evidence within yourself that you have come to an agreement with the Father and so to an acceptance by Him!
I delight in being accepted all the more because therein I am still further linked with Him who joins God and man in one grand affection! God’s love of His dear Son covers all Believers, as a canopy covers all who come beneath it. As a hen covers her chickens with her wings, so God’s love to Christ covers all the children of promise. As the sun shining forth from the gates of the morning gilds all the earth with golden splendor, so this great love of God to the Well-Beloved, streaming forth to Him, enlightens all who are in Him! God is so boundlessly pleased with Jesus that in Him He is alto-
gether well pleased with us. Oh, the joy of this blending of our interests with those of the Well-Beloved! I scarcely know where I am borne, even by a single word of my text.
Let this stand for our preface and now let us come close to our subject, upon which I do not desire so much to preach as to lead you individually to meditate and personally to feed. I would much rather put the text into your mouths as a sweet fruit from the garden of the Lord, most mellow and ripe, than be judged, myself, to handle it well. I seek not to exhibit my own skill in words, but I long that you may be refreshed with the marrow and fatness of this choice Word of God! I desire that you may, this morning, experimentally enjoy the precious drop of honey from the Rock, Christ Jesus, which is contained in the four words—“Accepted in the Beloved.” Oh that the Holy Spirit may make you enter into the treasures which they contain!