Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3429
“Accepted in the Beloved.” Ephesians 1:6.
I SHALL not attempt to do more than simply bring out the Truth of God and leave it with you. Fine words and gaudy sentences, with such a text as this, would be a vain attempt to “paint the lily and gild refined gold.” Let this bell ring and there is a depth of silver sweetness in it which will make the sanctified ear and heart glad with the fullness ofjoy. “Accepted in the Beloved.”
“The Beloved.” We all know to whom this refers. Our Lord is the Beloved of God. God is Love, and Christ is God. He is One with the Eternal Father and we can never tell—it were impossible for us to guess—what love there is between the Father and the Son, in their essential Deity. Jesus is the Beloved of angels. It is their joy to sing praise unto “Him who was, and is, and is to come.” He is the Beloved of all the white-robed band who have washed those robes in His blood and who sing, “Unto Him that has loved us, and washed us from our sins in His blood, to Him be glory.” He is the Beloved of His saints, who are still wayfaring and warfaring here below. To Him their highest affections gather. He is dearer to them than all besides, “the chief among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely.” “The Beloved.” Not only Beloved, but, “the Beloved.” This is a name for all the saints—“beloved”—for as John the Divine often writes in his Epistles, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.” All the family are beloved, but Christ, the Elder Brother, is “the Beloved.” He is especially beloved, the choicest, the Chief, who in this has the preeminence. How many times did God testify concerning Him that He was “the Beloved,” when He said, “This is my Beloved Son.” These waters of Baptism remind us of the scene on Jordan’s banks, when the Holy Spirit bore witness that He was the Beloved Son of God. In later life, even in the depths of His humiliation, the Father testified that this was the Beloved Son. To us, the saints, He is our Beloved Spouse. We sing of Him, as the song has it, even “the Song of Songs which is Solomon’s,” “My Beloved is mine, and I am His.” We delight to think of Him under that title, under which the Church of God of old addressed Him. He is Beloved in all His offices to us, Beloved in all His Characters, Beloved in the manger, Beloved in the shame and spitting, Beloved on the Cross, Beloved on the Throne! We cannot think of Him without our heart beginning to beat high and fast—
“He has engrossed my warmest love, No earthly charms my soul can move, I have a mansion in His heart, Nor death nor Hell can make us part.”
Of all the titles that are given to Christ, there may be some that excel in splendor, and others in sublimity, but surely this is among the chief for sweetness and expressiveness! It has the finger which touches our heart strings. “The Beloved.”
But now to the text. And the first thing I think I see in the text is that “the Beloved” is accepted of God. The second thing I see is that the saints are “in the Beloved.” And the third thing, that the saints are “acceptedin the Beloved.” It is clear in the text that “the Beloved” is—
I. Accepted of God
It will delight you if you try in meditation to get a hold of this thought, of how infinitely acceptable Christ must be to God the Father. All other forms of acceptance must have their limit and boundary—but the acceptability of the Son of God to the First Person of the Blessed Trinity must be altogether beyond either bottom or shore!
“The Beloved” must be acceptable to God in His own Person. Is He not God, Himself, and how should it be that one Person in the Indivisible Unity should be otherwise than acceptable to the other? He is also Man, but He is Man born after a wondrous birth. “The Son of the Highest.” The Holy Spirit overshadowed the Virgin Mother. In His Godhead and in His Manhood, united as Mediator, He stands supreme in His Person. As Saul was head and shoulders above all the rest of the men of Israel, so has the Lord “anointed Him with the oil of gladness above His fellows.” Who can be likened to Him in Person? Beauty, where can you draw, if your fancy shall take all its range, anything that shall be comparable to Him? Designer of all things, the Most High God, “Wonderful, The Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” What acceptance must there be in such an One as He is to the Most High God! You know that sometimes, in the sending of ambassadors, it is well to calculate whether the person chosen to be an ambassador will be adoptable to the foreign court. Now if he is a man of mean origin, a man ill-esteemed at home, it will be an insult to send him as an ambassador to another country. But if he is a man eminent and distinguished, admirable and admired, a man of high standing with his own Court, then he is the very person to represent the sovereignty of his country at another Court. See, then, what kind of Representative we have to send up to the Father’s Courts in Heaven—One who, while He is “bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh,” is, nevertheless, “God over all, blessed forever.” My Soul, what better Ambassador could you have? To whom could you entrust your concerns one half as well as to One so inconceivably excellent, so superlatively blessed? He is, then, acceptable in His Person!