+I. Springing from the benevolence of God+ (vers. 4, 7).--A good old saint once said, "There is nothing that affects me more profoundly, or more quickly melts my heart, than to reflect on the goodness of God. It is so vast, so deep, so amazing, so unlike and beyond the most perfect human disposition, that my soul is overwhelmed." The apostle seems to have been similarly affected as he contemplated the Divine beneficence, as the phrases he here employs indicate. He calls it "the great love wherewith He loved us." God is "rich in mercy"--in irrepressible, unmerited compassion (ver. 4). Language is too poor to express all he sees and feels, and he takes refuge in the ambiguous yet suggestive expression, "The exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Jesus Christ" (ver. 7)--hinting at the sublime benignity of the Divine nature longing to express itself through the noblest medium possible. By his rebellion and deliberate sin man had forfeited all claim to the Divine favour, and his restoration to that favour, impossible of attainment by any efforts of his own, was an act of sheer Divine goodness. Its spontaneity breaks in as a sweet surprise upon the sinning race. The most vicious and abandoned are included in its gracious provisions, and all men are taught that their salvation, if accomplished at all, must be as an act of free and undeserved grace. +II. Salvation has its life and fellowship in Christ+ (vers. 5, 6).--God has given us as unquestioned a resurrection from the death of sin as the body of Christ had from the grave, and the same Divine power achieved both the one and the other. The spiritual life of both Jew and Gentile has its origin in Christ, and the axe is thus laid to the very root of spiritual pride and all glorying in ourselves. We are raised by His resurrection power to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. This we do already by our spiritual fellowship with Him, and by anticipation we share the blessedness which we shall more fully enjoy by our union with Him in the heavenly world. The spiritual resurrection of the soul must precede and will be the inviolable guarantee of the future glorious resurrection of the body. As the great Head of the Church is already in the heavenlies, so ultimately all the members that make up the body shall be gathered there. We are already seated there _in_ Him as our Head, which is the ground of our hope; and we shall be hereafter seated there _by_ Him, as the conferring cause, when hope shall be swallowed up in fruition. Our life and fellowship in Christ are susceptible of indefinite expansion and enjoyment in the progressive evolutions of the future.