‘In him, I say, in whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who works all things after the counsel of his own will, to the end that we should be to the praise of His glory who had beforehand hoped in Christ.'
The glorious sweep of what has been said is now applied directly to us. It is we who have been made His special heritage, chosen and appointed to enjoy all that He has provided for us and all the blessings that He will give us. Through His grace we are what it is all about.
‘In Him, I say, in Whom also we were made a heritage --.' ‘In Him'. This refers back to the Christ in Whom all things are to be summed up. In carrying out all these purposes it is in Him that we have been made God's special heritage. Compare Ephesians 1:18 where he speaks of ‘the richness of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.' So we are God's glorious heritage, having been made glorious by Him, and presented to Christ as His inheritance, an inheritance made rich in glory. We are His treasured possession (Ephesians 1:14). And this was done ‘according to the purpose of Him Who works all things after the counsel of His will'. All was first done within the mind of God, and is worked out by the hand of God. And its aim is that we should be to the praise of His glory who ‘beforehand hoped in Christ', that is who before the final fulfilment enjoyed a certain, assured ‘hope', the hope of His coming to sum up all things because we trust in Him. After which His purposes, as far as this universe is concerned, will draw to an end.
The whole passage has redounded with the fact of God working out His own eternal will and purpose. In the great panorama of time and eternity man is the object of God's gracious working as God works out His will in accordance with His own counsel, and His own wisdom and prudence. But having seen the sweep of salvation history from God's viewpoint man now comes into the foreground for the first time.
Some see the continual ‘we' and ‘us' as referring firstly to believing Jews prior to the time when Paul spoke, including the believing Jews through the ages, so that ‘we who had beforehand hoped' is referred primarily to Old Testament believers, and this as then being applied to believing Gentiles in Ephesians 1:13 (note the change there to ‘you'). But this is too narrow an interpretation. It is far more likely that by ‘we' Paul means all believers in Christ and the change to ‘you' is simply a change to refer to his specific readers, for his readers would not naturally apply his former words only to Jews, unless it had been spelt out by him, and Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, was hardly likely to be so restrictive without indicating it.