Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love 5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He lavished on us.
The doctrine of God is put on display here in some ways, one of these being the fact that God loves Himself and does all for His own glory. This text, if one has the eyes to see, is truly all about God and how God does all for Himself and His own glory. The modern thinking of God and how He is so focused on man is really another aspect of the original lie of the devil which was “you shall be like God.” Man wants to focus on himself and so wants God to focus on man, but in fact God is focused on Himself and man should be focused on God. When that is reversed, man is actually being his own god and wants all to be focused on himself.
This shows us the profound error that modern theology and the modern “gospel” has fallen into. The doctrine of God has been watered down in order to make the “gospel” more palatable to man, which is simply an effort to have God be made acceptable to man. The issue, however, is that wicked and sinful man needs to be made acceptable to a thrice holy God. There is a huge difference between the modern so-called “gospel” of a God that is focused on man over Himself and the biblical God who does all for Himself. Man loves himself and thinks God should love him, but God loves Himself and it is only by grace that He works in man so that man may love Him.
When the Scripture teach us as in the text above that God chose sinners before the foundation of the world, the mind cannot really grasp this as human beings are locked in time to a great degree. But we should know that before a human being was born and God chose to save that person, God saves for His own name’s sake and for His own glory. This is one way of saying that God loves Himself and does all for His own glory. God the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father. When the Father loves sinners in Christ, that means He loves Himself in Christ. When Christ is said to go to the cross, we can know that Christ kept the Great Commandment perfectly and so His love was for the Father in all He did and that included the cross. This shows us that when the text says that sinners have redemption by the blood of Christ, sinners are saved because Christ loved the Father which is how God loves Himself as triune.
When the text tells us that God saves sinners to the praise of the glory of His grace, this should teach us to look at what that means. If all spiritual blessings are given to sinners in Christ and all grace is given to sinners in Christ, then surely it is clear that God saves sinners to the praise of the glory of Christ who has all the grace of God located in Him. The Lord Jesus, on the other hand, came out of love for the Father to make the name of the Father known. Christ manifested the very glory of God in all He said and did. When Christ manifested the glory of God out of love for the Father, what we see is the glory of the Father and part of that glory is His love for the Son who is the Beloved in Scripture. When sinners are saved by grace to the praise of the glory of His grace, what we see is the love of God for Himself as triune on display. The focus of saving sinners, then, is not the sinner in and of him or herself, but on God as triune.
The Gospel of the glory of God is exactly that and nothing less. Sinners should be amazed that God would save them and even more amazed that He saves them out of love for His own name and glory. This takes the focus off of man and puts it squarely on God Himself and in this sinners can have great comfort. While it seems as if the vast majority of people say that Christ died for me and made the deduction that Christ loves them for themselves, that is contrary to the nature and beauty of biblical grace. Christ died for sinners because He loved the Father and the Father loved the Son. Sinners have something far greater than their own worth and value to rest upon in terms of assurance. They have the very nature of God’s love for God to rest upon. The very nature of God is love, but it is love within Himself as triune. Here is something to rejoice over. God loves Himself and out of that great love in the Trinity He saves sinners in order to manifest His love for His own name and glory. Instead of the Gospel resting on the changing value and merit of sinners, it rests upon God’s unchanging love for Himself.
God Loves... Himself 
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