But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, quickened us together with Christ (by grace have ye been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly _places_, in Christ Jesus: that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus: for by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: _it is_ the gift of God: not of works, that no man should glory. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them. [Sidenote: _The method of redemption_] Here is St. Paul's description of the method of God in dealing with men when they were in {98} that state of sin, the conditions of which he has just summarised. We take note of the chief points in the method. (1) St. Paul has in mind here, as always, the divine predestination. There was an eternal purpose in the divine mind to make St. Paul and those to whom he wrote such as they were now on the way to become; it was a purpose not merely general, but extending to details. It belongs, in fact, to the divine perfection, that God does nothing, and purposes nothing, in mere vague generality. The universal range and scope of the divine activity as over all creatures whatsoever, hinders not at all its perfect application to detail. Thus God had 'predestined,' or held in His eternal purpose, not merely the state of Christians as a whole or even of the Asiatic Christians in particular, but the details of conduct which He willed them individually to exhibit. It is the particular 'good works' which God 'prepared beforehand in order that they should walk in them[5].' (2) What God predestined He accomplished first in summary 'in Christ Jesus.' In Him all that God meant to do for man was exhibited {99} and accomplished as God's own and perfect handiwork, as an effective and final disclosure. Men are to look for everything, for every kind of development and progress, in Christ, but for nothing outside or beyond Him. All is there--'all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,' all 'the fulness of the Godhead,' all the perfections of mankind, the reconciliation of all seeming opposites. All is brought to the highest possible level of attainment, 'the heavenly place.'