Flawed, adopted by a Flawless God.

My ex calls me a snob. Frequently. Well, yesterday, sitting in a very small Grace Presbyterian Church, in a town where 40% of the working age people are on the dole or some other kind of benefit, we were reminded of Martin Lloyd Jones, who I know as a preacher, but before that was a physician. He had left the elite practice of his craft in London and was preaching in rural Wales and was beset by doubts.

But he would have rather been talking of God in Wales than in the Royal Colleges. (A feeling I share: I have been in the Royal Colleges, Antipodean version, enough to know).

This story was told before communion in that small congregation, and I was glad to be there. We are told that the seal of our salvation is the holy spirit, which allows us to love each other across ethic and class barriers. For in Christ we are one.

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 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.

(Ephesians 1:1-14 ESV)

Now, this passage has driven many a Calvinist into a deep examination, with the full judgmental bleakness that is the weakness of our theological position, as it if he is truly predestined. It has also lead many a Pentecostal to think that they need not examine their lives, because they have been “baptized in the Holy Spirit”. But both are errors.

The passage assures us that God controls salvation. He will bring us home, and it is not our doing. Our natural tendency to hate, to lust, to control and to acquire shiny things needs to be curbed by us obeying the great laws: Love God, and Love our neighbour.

And the results of the spirit in our lives are Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness… not envy, despair, wrath, hurry, callousness and queer theory. Each day, looking at that list, we fail. Each morning we try again. And each evening we need forgiveness. The Roman discipline of confession, echoed in the liturgical requirement that there are prayers of confession before communion, should remind us of this. We are flawed, adopted by a flawless God. And this is beyond our understanding.