Christ the Justification of a Suffering World.
Such words as these of St. Paul spring out of that first bewilderment of joy which belongs to the sense of discovery. Christ is still a newly discovered wonder, and the wonder of the newness still fascinates, still overwhelms. What, then, is the mystery of God's will in gathering together all in one in Christ? Why was the Incarnation the true and only secret, the fit and only instrument? What did it actually do? Why was it such an immense relief to St. Paul?
I. Let me take it very broadly. What is the primary plan of God as we see it in nature? For this is the plan that Christ came to fulfil. We gaze and wonder at the terrific process of creation; and if we ask in awe and amazement, What is the end of all this? What is the purpose to be achieved? we are told, "Man." Man is the final achievement in which all this preparation issues; man is worth all this infinite toil, this agelong effort, this endless struggle, this thousandfold death. He is the justification; it is all very good since it all rises up into his crowning endowment. We turn to look at man, then, man as this world's fulfilment. What has he done to be worth it all?
II. The one nation in all the world which discovered the permanent purpose of God in history; the one nation which succeeded in finding a path through its own disasters, so that its own ruin only threw into clearer light the principles of God's ordained fulfilment this unique nation pronounced that the fulfilment, the justifying purpose, was to be found in holiness of spirit, the union of man with God, whose image he is. Accept this as man's end, and no destruction appals, no despair overwhelms, for this is the higher life, which is worth all the deaths that the lower can die; this is the new birth, which would make all the anguish of the travailing be remembered no more. But to know the secret was one thing; to achieve its fulfilment was another. The one possible end the achievement of holiness was itself impossible to the only people who recognised it as their end.
III. The holiness of God incarnate in the flesh of this labouring humanity, the holy image of God's perfect righteousness taking upon Himself the whole agony of man, dying the death which justifies all death but it turns death itself, by the honourable way of sacrifice, into the instrument of the higher inheritance, into the sacrament of righteousness, into the mystery of holiness, into the pledge of perfect peace this, and this only, makes a consummation by which the effort of God's creation achieves an end; this and this only, is a secret and a victory worthy of the merciful God in whom we trust. I need not spend many words on the practical application of this. It is practical enough sometimes just to draw out and study God's truth; and if we meditate on it, it will enforce on us its own applications. Only let us seek to realise that we are saved only by being well-pleasing to God; and we are well-pleasing only if He can recognise in us the fruit and crown of all this long travailing, the satisfaction of all this immense effort of creation; it is the holiness of Christ.
H. Scott Holland, Logic and Life,p. 81.
References: Ephesians 1:10. Homilist,3rd series, vol. x., p. 121.Ephesians 1:11. R. Thomas, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xvii., p. 86; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning,p. 215; Ibid., Evening by Evening,p. 30. Ephesians 1:11-14. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. v., p. 456.