September 14

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. — Eph 1:3 BSB

If you are blessed with all spiritual blessings, it’s only “in Christ” that you are blessed. If you were chosen before the foundation of the world, it was only “in Christ” that you were chosen. He is our covenant Head, and everything we are, we are in Him. There’s nothing in ourselves—nothing stable or fixed. All here below is unstable and uncertain when it comes to man. Certainty lies with God, and the fixedness of His purposes is our great and only support. So, the doctrine of election, when it’s truly received into the heart, spreads a sacred blessedness over all of God’s truth, giving it stability. It’s not a cold doctrine to be tossed around like a mere theological idea or a point of debate. It’s not a loose, floating idea plucked from a few uncertain Scripture passages. It’s a steady, divinely set truth, like the lights in the heavens, meant to give light and guide us on earth. It sheds light over all of God’s truth.

For in Christ, His people were chosen, and this means that the doctrine of election reflects the rays of the Sun of righteousness upon every gospel truth. Every spiritual blessing is connected to the Person and work of Christ, and the blessedness of election is because it is “in Christ.”

Some may say, “These things are hard to believe.” Indeed, they are hard to believe because our unbelieving hearts find it so difficult to accept anything that is truly for our good. We readily believe the lies of Satan; we easily listen to the evil suggestions of our own hearts. But to believe God’s truths in a way that opens their beauty and blessedness to us, that quickens us and makes us live under their invigorating influence—that’s a different matter. Yet, without these truths, where is the life in our religion? Take away, if it were possible—though, praise God, it is not—that great truth that God has blessed His Church with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, and what foundation for blessing would remain?

Any sweet promise that enters your heart, any time the light of God’s countenance breaks through seasons of darkness and trial, any liberty you feel in prayer, any looking up to receive from Christ’s fullness—all of it hinges on this grand point: that God has already blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. What we must do—what God alone can enable us to do—is to receive what God has graciously given. And as He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus, we can feel the power of those blessings, enjoy their sweetness, and, by the Spirit’s seal, know that He has blessed us, even us, with life forevermore.