“The Hour Has Come”

And as you’re seated, I invite you to turn to Ephesians and to chapter 1 and to follow along as I read the first fourteen verses. Ephesians chapter 1. A large part of this is just one very long sentence that Paul wrote. It’s broken up in our English to help us.

Ephesians 1:1:

“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

“To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus:

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

“In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.”

Amen.

Well, let me encourage you now to turn to the New Testament once again and to John chapter 17 and follow along as I read the first five verses:

“When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.’”

Our gracious Father, we pray now for the help of the Holy Spirit to quicken our hearts and minds, our understanding, so that we might lay hold of the great and precious truths of your Holy Word. In ourselves we are incapable, but by the Holy Spirit we are enabled. And so we look from ourselves unto you. And we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

We first dipped into the seventeenth chapter of John, I think, on the 9th of June, which is quite a long time away—and I don’t want to ask if any of you even remember that we did that, because it would be more than my ego could handle to realize that nobody put their hand up. And frankly, I didn’t remember much of it myself. I just remember thinking that this chapter takes us into realms of the godhead and realms of theology, realms of the mysteries of grace, that is almost unparalleled in the whole of the New Testament. I think it was Archbishop William Temple who said that this is, for the New Testament, the Holy of Holies.

And certainly, during the past week, I’ve been confronted again by the grandeur and by the vastness of this particular [prayer]. And I’ve been confronted by the fact that every attempt to dissect it or to analyze it or to frame it inevitably bows before simply reverence and awe. I’ve spent the time reading it and rereading it and imagining what it must have been like for the disciples themselves to be within earshot of the actual audible statements by Jesus when he addresses his Father in this way.

And in attempting, as it were, to grasp it, the best we can hope for is that we will be grasped by it. Because in being given access to this—and the Holy Spirit has determined not only that the disciples would have the privilege of hearing it but that we would have opportunity to read it—we’re brought to a place where the Lord Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, opens his heart to the Father. And we stand on holy ground. When Moses was confronted by the burning bush, remember, the word of God to him was “Take off your sandals, Moses, for the ground on which you find yourself standing is holy ground.”[1]

Now, I want to try and make it through the first three verses this morning. I want us to notice, first of all, what Jesus asks; then to notice, secondly, the work to which Jesus is assigned; and then, thirdly, to understand the way in which Jesus assures us of the nature of eternal life. I mention that now. It may not appear that I’m following my own outline, so you can fill in the blanks for yourself.

The context is set, obviously, between all that Jesus has just said—the Upper Room Discourse, recorded for us in chapters 14, 15, and 16—and then, when you get to the end of 17 and you go into the beginning of chapter 18, we are moving, then, to the desertion of the disciples and the crucifixion of Jesus. And it is for that reason that Jesus lifts up his eyes to heaven. It’s interesting that we’re given the posture of Jesus: that he looks up and out and beyond himself, God addressing God. And he says, “The hour has come.”

Now, when we went through the Gospel of John, at least looking at the “Truly, trulys,” we were aware of the fact that this notion of the unfolding purpose of God throughout time as it relates to eternity is there in order to help us at least to understand this: that things are making progress to the great moment. And it is of this great moment that now Jesus is speaking. Back in chapter 2, at the first miracle that is recorded for us, in Cana of Galilee, he addresses his mother, reminding her that his hour has not yet come.[2] In chapter 7, when they came to arrest him, we’re told by John, “No one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.”[3] In chapter 12 and in verse 23—and I’m not assuming that you’re tracking with me in all of this, but if you look to it, you will see it there—in 12:23, when they come to him and they are inquiring about him and the Greeks are seeking him, “Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.’” And then we had one of our “Truly, trulys”: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” And he then goes on to make application of that: “If anyone serves me, he must follow me; … where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.”

By our very nature, we have a skewed understanding of ourselves, and we need our Bibles to show us who and what we really are.

So, here we are, at the pivotal event of all of human history. That would be challenged by many today, perhaps by most today. We all recognize that in the unfolding story of humanity, there have been key points along the way. 1776 matters, doesn’t it? When finally George III was sent home, and the Thirteen Colonies decided that we would be able to do it on our own—following on, actually, from something that had happened in the fifteenth century in Scotland, where the Scottish people had sent Edward II back home in order that we in Scotland could enjoy the privileges that we’ve been enjoying over here, such as they are. But 1776 is nothing in comparison to this.

Jesus is going to go on and say in [chapter] 18, “For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth.”[4] So out of the lips of Jesus himself, as he comes now into the presence of his Father and as he prays, he understands exactly what is before him. And he is the very embodiment of the truth that he has come to proclaim. On that occasion, when Jesus makes that statement, Pilate’s response is somewhat superficial, I think, when he says, “Oh, what would you actually say is truth?” “I came,” he says, “to bear witness to the truth,” and Pilate says, “What is truth?”[5]—which is, of course, a very contemporary response, isn’t it? Because we’re living in a world where we recognize that again and again, the notion is that there is no ultimate truth. There is no absolute morality; I make up my own rules. There is no ultimate truth; I am able to decide my own truth. There is no creator God; I am a product of myself and my own plans and designs.

Now, I want to pause there for a moment and acknowledge the fact that we need our Bibles to understand the truth. We need our Bibles to understand the truth about ourselves. Because by our very nature, we have a skewed understanding of ourselves, and we need our Bibles to show us who and what we really are. We read from chapter 1 of Ephesians, purposefully. And when Paul moves from chapter 1 into chapter 2… In chapter 1, he’s describing the wonder of God’s electing love: that he has called us into the presence of his Son and united us with him and with one another. And then he goes immediately to chapter 2, and he says, “But let’s not forget what we were.” And as you turn to it, you realize that he describes the human condition outside of Christ.

Our predicament—following on from last Sunday—our predicament is not that we’re incomplete. It’s not that we are simply looking for a way to get on in life. “No,” says Paul, “as for you, you were dead in your trespasses and in your sins.”[6] You had no ears to hear the voice of God. You were dead and you were deaf, helpless and hopeless.

Now, again I say to you: Where else but from the Bible are we going to find such an acknowledgment of the position of humanity? If we were to go out just around our community today and ask questions like “What do you think is wrong with man?” “How did we get ourselves in this position?” and so on, there would be all kinds of answers. But it would be a very, very limited number who would say, “Well, of course, outside of Christ, we are dead and we are deaf.”

Now, again, think about that. We rehearsed the creed this morning. We’re familiar with the Westminster Confession, the Shorter Scottish Catechism. Question number 1 of the catechism is “What is the chief end of man?” What does man exist for—man qua man, men and women, humanity? And the answer that we give is “The chief end of man is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” Really?

But the problem is that we’re committed to glorifying ourselves. We glorify ourselves. In fact, in John chapter 5, when Jesus is speaking about the people who were very proud of their religious background, he says to them, “You know, it’s a very interesting thing to me that you believe… How can you believe? You say you believe.” “[But] how can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?”[7] Well, of course, you don’t believe. You refuse to come. You don’t seek the glory that comes from God.

Now, this is of vital importance. Because, you see, the essence of sin is not in particular acts and actions. The essence of sin is actually in the fact that we do not glorify God. Romans 3:23: “All have sinned and fall[en] short of the glory of God.” We were made by him, we were made for him, and our chief end is to glorify him. Why are we in the mess we’re in, individually, personally, familially, nationally, globally? We glorify ourselves.

Now, again, this is very important in a congregation like this. Because I’ve discovered over the forty-one years now that respectable people do not regard themselves as sinners. And part of the reason is because of the way in which we conceive of sin. When we conceive of sin as being particular acts and actions, as long as we are not related to those individual acts or actions—whatever they might be—then we’re able to excuse ourselves. We’re like the fellow in Matthew 18: “I thank you that I’m not like other people.[8] Certainly not like this person! Certainly not like the one across my desk in the office! Certainly not like that person! I’m actually not a sinner.”

Well then, what is the gospel? The gospel is not an appeal to our better instincts. The story of the Bible is the good news of what God has done for us in our deadness and in our deafness. You see, the appeal of the gospel only drives itself into the heart of a man or a woman when we understand the way in which our condition is explained: dead in our trespasses and sins. And Paul says, “And the mystery of the gospel is that he has made us alive together with Christ.”[9]

Now, you say, “Well, why pause on this?” Well, because it is to this that Jesus is referring when he asks the Father, “Glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you.” He is referring to the mission that he has been given. His whole mission in life was to glorify the Father. It’s quite amazing and wonderful! In John chapter 6—we studied this months ago as well—Jesus says, “I [came] down from heaven, not to do my own will but [to do] the will of him who sent me.”[10] When you read on in the gospel, he says, “I don’t write my own sermons.” He doesn’t actually say that. That’s a paraphrase. I made that up. He says, “The words that I speak are the words that my Father gave me to speak.[11] I’m not operating a solo program here.” He actually says that the works that he does are the works that the Father has given him to do.[12] And so the Father glorifies the Son in bringing him through the cross, through the grave, to the place where “the head that once was crowned with thorns is crowned with glory now.”[13]

It’s so vast. You can’t really get your arms around it, can you? It’s just amazing! And yet, in the eyes of the world—the unopened eyes of men and women—the cross is a signal of defeat. Where is there any glory in the death of this man hanging as a bloodied wreck outside the city walls? How does this work? “Glorify your Son. Father, glorify me.”

Well might the sun in darkness hide
And shut its glories in
When Christ, the mighty Maker, died
For man the creature’s sin.[14]

O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood,
To every believer the promise of God;
[That] the vilest offender who truly believes
That moment from Jesus a pardon receives.[15]

And not only that, but as the Father glorifies his Son in the cross, the Son triumphs over the rulers and over the authorities. In Colossians chapter 2, you have this amazing reminder of this: “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and [in] the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.”[16] You see how easy it is for us to so personalize our Christian lives that it almost seems trivial to people, because of the way we speak about it: “I used to be an unhappy person, and now I’m happy.” “Big deal! I share that with you. I got into Christian Science. I found it tremendously helpful.” You know, “I used to be fairly clueless, but now I’ve got purpose in my life.” “Glad you can tell me about that, because I found the exact same thing in following Buddhism.”

In the cross, God’s power is displayed. Who else can raise the dead? Who else can bring the predicament of humanity to the point where it is dealt with in the blood of his Son?

You see where we are with this? No, it’s something vaster than this. He made us “alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands”[17]—giving us our little couplet, you know: He came to pay a debt he didn’t owe because we owe a debt we cannot pay. “I am completely in your debt because I do not glorify you. I glorify myself. I’m not really interested in you. I just want to get on in my life. I want to do better than I’ve been doing. Is there anything that you can tell me that could help me along the road?” That is a vastly different story from this. He “set aside” these demands, “nailing [them] to the cross.” Now, listen to this: “He disarmed the rulers and [the] authorities and [he] put them to open shame, by triumphing over them [all].”[18]

“Father, … glorify your Son that [your] Son may glorify you.” The claims made by Jesus are vindicated, because what was planned before the creation of the world was accomplished in time, and in this the Father is glorified. How is the Father glorified? How is God glorified in this? Well, in so many ways; we don’t have time to recount.

But number one: In the cross, God’s power is displayed. Who else can raise the dead? Who else can bring the predicament of humanity to the point where it is dealt with in the blood of his Son?

In the cross the Father is glorified in that his justice is established and revealed. God just can’t forgive sin. You hear people talking about forgiveness as if “Well, you know, God, he has to forgive. It’s what he does. That’s what God does. You know, he forgives sin.” The idea is that he somehow just passes over it, like a Father who says, “Well, I’m not going to worry about it. I don’t really care. Just go on to your bedroom, and let’s get on with life.” Not for a moment! He doesn’t ignore it. He doesn’t treat it as if it never happened. Because the way of salvation by which the Father is glorified is consistent with the character of God. He is a just God. Therefore, justice must be served. Therefore, sin must be punished. His power is displayed. His justice is revealed.

God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. We sang about it this morning in Wesley’s great hymn, “And Can It Be?” as we sang about “Adam’s race”—coming back to last Sunday, if you can remember that far back, as we went back through again the way in which the story of Genesis 1–3 unfolds, and we reminded ourselves that Adam disobeyed God as our representative head, and as a result, we all sinned in Adam. The disobedience of Adam is then superseded by the obedience of Jesus. Because Jesus is actually the captain of our salvation. Jesus is the one who dies in our place. And there is salvation in nobody else.

The Father is glorified not only in his power and in his justice but also in his love and in his mercy. Because he doesn’t exact punishment on guilty sinners. Remember what the Bible says: “in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”[19] We are the ones who are deserving of punishment, and the sinless one bears the punishment that we deserve.

Oh, the love that drew salvation’s plan!
Oh, the grace that brought it down to man!
Oh, the mighty [work] that God did span
At Calvary!

[Because] mercy there was great, and grace was free,
[And] pardon there was multiplied to me;
[And] there my burdened soul [set free]
At Calvary.[20]

This is Christian testimony. He bestows grace to sinners at the expense of his own dear Son, whom he loved from before the foundation of the world. Look at that: 17—Where is it?—24. “Father, I desire that they also”—and this will come weeks from now—“whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me”—listen—“because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” This, you see, this is what I’m saying to you. The grandeur and the vastness of this is just completely mind-stretching—that it takes us back into precreation eternity; that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, coequal, coeternal, live in a communion of mutual love and satisfaction and fullness and joy, and he empties himself and steps down into time, and he does it for sinners.

Well, he asks that the Father will glorify him so that he might glorify him. And he recognizes, too, that he has an authority that he has been given. We’ll spend less time on this, for your encouragement, but you’ll notice verse 2: “Father, … glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh.” Now, we go immediately wrong if we think that this is suggesting the transfer of something from a superior to an inferior—that is, as if somehow or another, the Father, in a superior position, gives an assignment to the Son, who’s in an inferior position. No, the Bible makes no bones about the fact that that is not the case. God is one being, eternally, in three persons, equally God, knowing, loving one another.

And it is this one who has been assigned authority over all things. I thought about this a lot. I don’t really know much to say to you except it means what it says: “You[’ve] given him authority over all flesh.” If you read your Bible this morning, part of it was Psalm 24: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.”[21] He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and the wealth in every mine.[22] He is sovereign over the nations of the world. He is sovereign over the coming elections in November. He has been given authority over all things. Colossians: “In him all things hold together.”[23] That’s what he’s saying.

This is the reality. You’ll never read this in a textbook. You won’t read this as you learn history at your school or at university. No, we need the Bible if we need to know truth—the truth about ourselves, the truth about history, the truth about God, the truth about it all. The truth! And, again, we live in a culture where the idea is “Of course, it’s a ridiculous search. It’s not there.”

Oh, look at what it says! It’s so glorious, isn’t it? “Since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life.” “To give eternal life.” We don’t earn eternal life. We receive eternal life. It’s a double giving, you will notice, taking us back to our studies in 6: that the Father has given to his Son as a gift a people that he has purposed from all of eternity to make his very own, and it is the prerogative of the Son to give eternal life to those whom the Father has given to him. The Bible is clear: God ordains men and women to salvation. We read it in Ephesians chapter 1. And God ordains the means whereby men and women come to salvation: through the preaching of the gospel.

You realize Paul, having given us this great paean of theology and of the wonder of God’s amazing eternal love, he says, “And so it was with you, when you heard the truth, the gospel of your salvation, and you believed.” God doesn’t believe for us. God has entrusted from eternity to his Son a people. And the gospel is proclaimed, and the voice of Jesus is heard, if it is heard at all; and the voice of the mere preacher knocks, as it were, at the outside of the door, but the voice of Christ, you see, knocks at the heart.[24] Then you see. There’s that flesh of Wesley’s light: “I woke; the dungeon flamed with light.”[25]

This is Christian testimony. This is not weird theology. It can be the dungeon that woke for me as a boy at primary school, when the Sunday school teacher explained to me, “You’re a bad boy. Jesus is a good God. Jesus has come to do for you what you can’t do for yourself, Alistair. And if you will trust Jesus, he will come and live in you and fill you and make you and use you.” And I said, “Okay! Okay! I believe. I understand enough knowledge, I assent to that truth, and I entrust my life to it.”

We need the Bible if we need to know truth—the truth about ourselves, the truth about history, the truth about God, the truth about it all.

Doesn’t matter if you’re seven or seventy. Doesn’t matter if you’re bright or dumb. Doesn’t matter if you are prosperous or fearful. This is the story: the eternal call of God—everyone who looks and believes. If you’re a Christian this morning, you have been given to Christ by the Father, you have come to Christ as a result of his call, and you today are being kept by Christ—unless, of course, you’ve started to come around because you just want a little direction in your life, a little religion, a little something just to keep you going. What a tragedy to be an unconverted believer!

He asks, “Glorify the Son, that I may glorify you.” He receives the assignment: to grant eternal life to all those whom God has given him. And then he clarifies—just in a phrase or two—he clarifies the nature of that eternal life that is a gift: “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” “The time has come.”

You think about it: We were quoting, last week, Horace, remember? What was that, 65 BC? And all those idols and Greek and Roman philosophers and so on had been parading their wares and suggesting the solution to life and so on. And when, if you like, God had given humanity time to absorb a lot of that stuff, then he says, “Now, Son. Now is the time. Go down and tell them the truth. Tell them the truth about themselves so that they might face the reality of self-glorification. Tell them the wonder of what you’ve come to do. Son, glorify me as I glorify you.” There is no saving knowledge of God outside of Jesus Christ. “In him was life; and the life was the light of men.”[26] He is the one who said, “I’ve come that you might have life, that you might have it in all of its fullness.”[27] And he’s not suggesting that eternal life means life as we know it now, just going on and on forever. Think quality, not quantity. Because Jesus is about to complete the mission for which he’s been sent—verse 4. That’s next time.

But let me end in this way, with just a comment. I mentioned earlier the danger of our Christian lives becoming introspective and subjective rather than God-centered and objective, so that when we talk about our Christian life, we tend to talk about ourselves. And, of course, there is a way in which we can explain to others our understanding of how we’ve come to Christ. But it’s all about him. It’s about looking at him. It’s about looking to him.

When the writer to the Hebrews is urging his readers, he says, you know, “What are you going to do? How will you escape if you neglect so great a salvation?”[28] The story of salvation, of what is happening here as Jesus prays, is, as I say again, vast. It’s historical. It’s rational; you don’t have to remove your thinking cap. It’s empirical; you can put it to the test.

Part of the challenge for us as well in navigating this is that contemporary notions… Contemporary notions: It’s trendy for philosophers, for professors of history, for politicians to let it be known that there is no great explanation of our existence. There is, in their terminology, no metanarrative. There is no big story. It’s ironic, because to say that is to create your own metanarrative, which is that there is no metanarrative. But anyway, what they’re really saying is “Freudianism is taboo, Marxism is really trashed, and so on and so on and so on, and so, by and large, make up your own! Because after all, there’s no creator God. After all, there is no ultimate morality. And after all, there is no reliable truth. Therefore, go ahead. You’re going to have to make it up.”

But what struck me this week was: What if Christians—what if Christians, believing Christians—are actually buying that notion? And that in seeing their existence in Jesus in such personal terms—“This is about I, me, and mine”—they lose sight of the big picture? And in losing sight of the big picture, they fail to explain the story in terms of the totality of it? That God made the world, and it’s good. Sin entered into the world, and it became bad. Jesus came in order to make it new. And one day, in a new creation, he will make it perfect. Good, bad, new, perfect: the metanarrative. Where do I fit into that? I fit into it in an amazing way: that God from all of eternity entrusted me to his Son, who in turn gave to me eternal life. This is vast!

That’s why when Paul, again in Ephesians, talks about comprehending with all the saints what is the breadth, the length, the height, the depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,[29] he reminds them of the fact of the way in which they have entered into an inheritance which has become theirs: “having been predestined according to the … counsel of his will.” Why? “So that [you] … might be to the praise of his glory.”[30] He says, “You heard it. You believed it. You were sealed with the provision of the Holy Spirit. And now you live to the praise of his glory.”

I have no words. I have more inside of me than I can get out of me. I hope you do too.

Let us pray:

Our God and our Father, forgive us for big thoughts about ourselves and small thoughts about you. Forgive us when our preoccupation with the wonders of your grace just has to do with whether we’re managing, coping, getting on, forgetting that the reason that you drew us to yourself was in order that we might be to the praise of your glory.

Lord, we need to understand this as a church in order that we might live amongst one another in a way that is humble, in a way that acknowledges the fact that we are simply the evidence of your amazing grace and kindness, so that we might go out into a world where there’s stabbings in Taco Bell; where there’s shootings up the street; where the chaos and clashing reality of a world gone south, living for itself, needs not a story about how to get completion, how to do better, but how to be transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of your dearly beloved Son.[31]

Fill us with these thoughts, Lord. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

[1] Exodus 3:5 (paraphrased).

[2] See John 2:4.

[3] John 7:30 (ESV).

[4] John 18:37 (ESV).

[5] John 18:38 (ESV).

[6] Ephesians 2:1 (paraphrased).

[7] John 5:44 (ESV).

[8] See Luke 18:11.

[9] Ephesians 2:5 (paraphrased).

[10] John 6:38 (ESV).

[11] John 12:49 (paraphrased).

[12] See John 5:36.

[13] Thomas Kelly, “The Head That Once Was Crowned with Thorns” (1820).

[14] Isaac Watts, “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed?” (1707).

[15] Fanny Jane Crosby, “To God Be the Glory” (1875).

[16] Colossians 2:13 (ESV).

[17] Colossians 2:13–14 (ESV).

[18] Colossians 2:14–15 (ESV).

[19] Romans 5:8 (KJV).

[20] William Reed Newell, “At Calvary” (1895).

[21] Psalm 24:1 (ESV).

[22] See Psalm 50:10.

[23] Colossians 1:17 (ESV).

[24] See Revelation 3:20.

[25] Charles Wesley, “And Can It Be That I Should Gain?” (1738).

[26] John 1:4 (KJV).

[27] John 10:10 (paraphrased).

[28] Hebrews 2:3 (paraphrased).

[29] See Ephesians 3:18–19.

[30] Ephesians 1:11–12 (ESV).

[31] See Colossians 1:13.