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“The riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself.”
Ephesians 1:7-9
Father Matta El-Meskeen (Matthew the Poor)
WHEN CHRIST OUTPOURED ON US from the riches of His grace, the blessings
were so numerous that we were unable to absorb them all due to their limitless
number; but when we grasped them they appeared before us wisely arranged expressing
an astuteness beyond understanding. Because who up till now can grasp the cross of Christ or fathom the depth of sacrifice He fulfilled through His blood and the suffering
He underwent on the cross as well as before it?
In all of these Your will O God was revealed. We realized accordingly that it is with
joy, and in accordance to Your purpose and plan of Your inner intent that the power of
redemption You had planned was revealed to us. Also the forgiveness of the whole
world’s sins Your Son fulfilled on the cross of His love revealed to us the mystery of
Your will which You had hidden from the wise and understanding, even the heavenly
creatures, the prophets and saints. You finally showed it to Your apostles and disciples
and revealed it to the Apostle Paul who acclaimed it to the whole world uncovering
Your purpose to the nations having made them enter Your plan to live with the Gospel
and participate in Your body and heritage.
In this way the grace of God was revealed which He had generously given to the
world through His Son Jesus Christ. The wise and blessed intent was exposed making
clear our election in Christ, to become saints without blame, based on His abounding
love. He also chose us and appointed us for adoption to become sons to God after
having been sons to Adam, in bondage to the will of the devil, moving us to the degree
of becoming His sons due to His great love. Thus God predestined us according to His
plan since the beginning and chose us in Christ to become His sons after having been
slaves. Due to that blessed intent He sent His Son to lead us in the procession of His
victory after having redeemed us on the cross, raising us with Him, nay seating us at the
right hand of God when He became seated in that flesh that is ours.
These were the intents of the Highest in Himself for our sake. For we were chosen in
Christ since the beginning and appointed as God’s children in sonship to Christ. It was
according to the pleasure of God all of which He kept according to His will as a
concealed mystery He did not show either to the angels, the saints or the apostles or
prophets, but at the end of the days showed it and announced it to His saints through the
Spirit. The Apostle Paul was one of those to whom this mystery of God was revealed
and thus he advocated it to the whole world.
That which moves us and surprises us the most in God’s extreme care and mercy to
our kind is that which Christ accomplished for our sake by presenting Himself and His
body a ransom for us. In His compassionate consideration He underwent the suffering of
death in all its elements, with its preceding pains concentrated in Him in an unbearable
manner set by God since the beginning.
We go back to the records of our salvation to discover that He had predestined it and
prepared everything concerning our gained holiness and righteousness. The organizing
of our share in the life and heritage of the Son was before time and since the beginning,
so that if we wanted to record it here to the reader it would take pages and pages. How
great a mystery is this extreme paternity, while originally we were a disobedient creation
that exhausted God since the first forefather, until His Son came to us establishing
redemption and forgiveness returning mankind to become of Christ’s kind, and be as the
written word living “members of His body” rising to Heaven to enter His eternal glory
being the only Son of God, nay to make us also fellows in His glory, righteousness,
holiness and sonship. The Apostle Paul adds according to revelation “For we are
members of His (new) body, of His flesh and of His bones.”1
Prayer
We lift our voices O Lord to bare witness before the whole of creation that You
adopted us,
We were under the bondage of sin and death, and You raised us to Your saints.
We were slaves to death and You gave us the freedom of being Your children with
their holiness,
What grace is such that attained the level of Fatherly love?
What wisdom and what perspicacity did Your plan since the beginning reach
concerning us,
We now know Your holy will, and the righteousness of Your grace has been
revealed.
We are indebted not only with the works of the cross and that which was fulfilled but
also with Your everlasting love.
If the cross has uncovered the extent of Your love so (in comparison) what is Your
adoption of us.
If adoption has prepared for us eternity then to where will Your love take us.
We have finished with the story of our redemption, so that it is not us who live but it
is Your Son who is alive within us.
July 11, 2005
1 Eph 5:30.
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