Ephesians 1:11

11. Obtained an inheritance The Greek verb for this phrase, εκληρωθημεν , is derived from a root ( κληρος ) signifying lot, and radically means to acquire by lot, and thence to acquire by inheritance, or any other mode of allotment or distribution. And being in the passive form here, it might be rendered have been inherited. The sense would then be, not that the elect has obtained an inheritance, but that the elect is itself the inheritance of Christ in the restitution. That would make an impressive and truly biblical idea; Acts 20:28, Titus 2:14, and in the Old Testament, Exodus 19:5; Deuteronomy 7:6; Deuteronomy 14:2; Deuteronomy 26:18. This construction is adopted by Afford, Ellicott, and many others. But it is certainly wrong; being contradicted, as we may show, at several subsequent points, and especially in Ephesians 1:13-14, where unquestionably it is the elect who are sealed over as obtainers of the inheritance, and not as being inherited. Meyer has shown that the active meaning of the word is admissible.

According to some commentators (see Meyer) the lot, as meaning a die, indicates here the pure groundlessness of an individual election, “because in the elect themselves there is no cause why they should be elected rather than others.” That is, our holy God decides the eternal salvation or damnation of immortal souls without reason, with a fortuity imaged by the casting of a die or the tossing of a copper! Such an interpretation sinks both the divine character and the authority of Scripture below the level of moral respect. The glory of our election, forsooth, is due to the chance that turned us up heads! All this is contradicted by the words purpose and counsel, indicating a divine fore-deliberated choice in view of the proper conditioned quality of the object chosen. It is as gratuitous an interpretation as it is abhorrent; for the word is used abundantly, without any reference to chance, to signify inheritance, estates, lands.

The reference to the allotment of the tribes in Canaan, the land of promise, is not to be held as subsidiary, but as a key to all that follows. The restitution of Ephesians 1:10 is unto God’s Canaan, which we have by him inherited. It is to this restitution-land that we believers, having inherited, are predestinated, sealed over by the Spirit of promise promise, namely, of the restitution-land; which Spirit is our first instalment ( earnest) thereof (namely, of the land) until the completed redemption (initiated at Ephesians 1:7) of the originally purchased possession. The entire body of commentators, ancient and modern, so far as we know, seem to have failed to grasp this clew, and so appear to miss the meaning.

Predestinated Being fore-destinated to the gracious rewards of faith. See on Ephesians 1:5. The rewards to which they are destined is the allotment into the restoration as partakers of the inheritance from Jehovah. All things, must not be limited either to Jews and Gentiles, or to the things of the kingdom of Christ; for it is Paul’s purpose to trace the origin of the holy Church back to God, the almighty Ruler of all things. It does not thence follow that physical events and free volitions are worked alike. In the former, God’s immanent energy originates and directs all action by such uniformity as assumes to us the aspect of necessary law; but in the free agent God supplies the energy for action, while it is the very property of the freedom of the agent that within in the area of his freedom he directs his own actions. Yet these free actions it is the prerogative of Infinite Wisdom to take into his plan, and work them in accordance with his own counsel to his own glorious ends. Note on Matthew 11:25, and on Romans 9:0. Counsel belongs to the deliberative intellect, and the word here denotes the final conclusion attained by the deliberation, and adopted by the will. God’s counsel, therefore, in full view of all possible results, from all possible courses, results in a choice of absolute wisdom.