‘To the praise of the glory of His grace with which He freely engraced us in the Beloved.'
This activity of God will result in the praise of His glorious grace. All universes, if such there be, will wonder at His gracious condescension to those who had proved themselves totally unworthy. For when the whole plan of salvation has been carried through, and the redeemed finally share the new Heaven and the new earth with Him in the glory of Christ, and all that mars creation has been done away, then will the fullness of His grace, His active, unbounded, undeserved love and favour shown to the totally unworthy, have been fully revealed and be the focus of the worship of Heaven, as to some extent it is indeed already (Revelation 5:12-13).
For it is through His grace, active and undeserved, that all this will come about. Thus will the universe know and appreciate the grace and graciousness of God, a grace which is beyond all measure and beyond all comprehension, for they will have seen it enacted before their eyes. And yet amazingly it is that grace that we experience, and, yes, if we are His, experience daily.
‘He freely engraced us.' His grace, His undeserved love and favour, is freely bestowed on us ('echaritosen - ‘He engraced, He fully and abundantly revealed grace'. Compare its use in Luke 1:28. As Mary was ‘engraced' in bearing Jesus, so we also are ‘engraced', surrounded by divine mercy and active love. Thus we can say, ‘Hail, believer, full of grace, the Lord is with you'). It is bestowed in Christ, in all He is and has done for us, and in all His activity on our behalf. There was not one jot of worthiness in us, not one jot of deserving. But in Christ He has surrounded us with His active love, enveloped us in His merciful and unrestrained goodness, and poured out on us His unsparing favour, for He has given us all things ‘in Christ'.
He is the beginning (Colossians 1:18) before ever the world was. He is the Source of all things (Colossians 1:16). He is the One Who is over all (Ephesians 1:22). All that has marred creation is the sin of men and of angels, our sin and theirs, but by His amazing grace, His active, undeserved love and favour, He is acting to remove that stain and blemish by the redemption of His chosen ones and the final destruction of all that offends. So all that is will in the end be ‘to the praise of His glorious grace'.
‘In the Beloved.' All that He has done for us is ‘in (Christ) the Beloved'. Every spiritual blessing is in Christ (Ephesians 1:3), our being chosen was in Him (Ephesians 1:4), our adoption as sons is through Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:5), through His blood we have our redemption and forgiveness (Ephesians 1:7), everything will finally be summed up in Him (Ephesians 1:10), and in Him we have been made God's inheritance (Ephesians 1:11). But here He is called, not by name, but as ‘the Beloved'. For the title ‘the Beloved' compare (Matthew 3:17; Matthew 12:18; Matthew 17:5; Mark 12:6; Luke 20:13; 2 Peter 1:17; Colossians 1:13). The idea behind ‘the Beloved' is the only beloved Son of the Father, the One beloved before all worlds, the One specially sent by the Father as His only Son. Who else could have ‘freely engraced' us in this mighty way apart from Him?