God's Ultimate Purpose by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Some preachers claim to be expositor preachers, but I have not seen many who can come close to Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Although he has now gone to be with the Lord, his preaching lives on through his many books. I have seen him take up to three chapters to explain one verse of Scripture. It is deep but always thought-provoking and life-challenging.

God’s Ultimate Purpose is his exposition of Ephesians Chapter One. In this book, we are led verse by verse, sometimes phrase by phrase, through the first chapter of Ephesians. Many foundational doctrines that we need to know God and lead God-pleasing lives are laid bare.

In the last part of Ephesians 1:6, we come across the phrase ‘in the Beloved.’ God Himself testified in the Gospels that Jesus was the Beloved. This term shows us the oneness of Jesus with the Father. The fact that Jesus is the Beloved reveals that anyone who claims to love God but does not love and submit to Jesus is lying or self-deceived. Only through the Beloved can we have access to God. This also reveals the Father’s love for us. He was watching from heaven every insult and suffering His beloved Son endured, and yet He did not intervene because of His love for us. How could we ever doubt the love of the Father? Every blessing that we have is because we are in Christ Jesus.

This term also shows us the great love of the Son, Jesus, for us. In heaven, as the Beloved of the Father, He had every privilege, every right, and everything He wanted in a perfect relationship of love and companionship. He needed nothing. He lacked nothing. Yet for His great love for us, He emptied Himself of all that He had to endure the humiliation of the Incarnation and the suffering of the Cross. How could we ever doubt the love of the Son?

Finally, because we are in the Beloved, the Father loves us as much as He loves His Son. No human mind can comprehend the depth of that statement. It is amazing, shocking that the Father would love us as much as His only begotten Son.

“The Bible is God’s book, it is a revelation of God, and our thinking must always start with God. Much of the trouble in the Church today is due to the fact that we are so subjective, so interested in ourselves, so egocentric…When we are reading the Scriptures, we must never take anything for granted; we must always be alert and alive and always ready to ask questions.” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones in God’s Ultimate Purpose.