⁷ that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

God made believers alive, and raised and seated them with Christ, in order to “show” His rich grace from now until the eternal state.

that in the ages to come

The “that” here shows God’s purpose in saving us by the riches of His grace. This grace will manifest itself in the economy of the church and also in eternity. God wants people to see what free salvation of the souls does to people.

“Ages” is not the same as “age.” Age in the singular would refer to eternity, but ages in the plural refers to successive generations in all future time.

He might show the exceeding riches of His grace

We saw God’s grace in verse five; now, in this verse and verses eight and nine, we will see a further development of God’s grace.

The word “show” means to make visible or apparent, to display. God shows abundant grace to great sinners and He wants to display what He did to others. He will display the trophies of His grace for everyone to see. Anything that distorts God’s grace and the unmerited nature of it is inconsistent with its essence and what He wants people to know about how He operates.

The emphasis is not on simply God’s grace, or the riches of His grace, but the “exceeding” riches of His grace. The word “exceeding” means surpassing or super grace. There is nothing trivial about God’s grace (Ro 5:20).

in His kindness [goodness] toward us

God manifests His grace by His goodness or kindness toward us. His kindness toward us revolves around Jesus Christ. “Kindness” means goodness. This is about the active manifestation of God’s goodness by grace; His goodness is an activity as well as an attitude. His activity was sending Jesus to die for our sins. God’s goodness is exercised through Christ and for His sake; it is not found in us whatsoever.

God’s kindness is expressed by His grace. We saw God’s mercy, love, grace and now His “kindness” or goodness toward us. The character of God has our best interests in view. It is wonderful to know a God like this.

in Christ Jesus.

Grace, kindness, and mercy all center in our position in Christ.

PRINCIPLE:

God’s purpose for us is to show the world the magnitude of His grace toward us.

APPLICATION:

The new order of grace for the believer makes for an occasion of future display. God wants to demonstrate or show the magnitude of His grace towards sinners. One of God’s purposes in saving us by grace is that grace itself will be clearly displayed in time and eternity. God wants us to see that His grace is extraordinarily surpassing. It has no comparison.

God’s desire is that we would come to grips with His grace. However, this is exactly what men do not know. Sadly, this is also true of Christians. Many believers operate under the delusion that somehow they can make themselves acceptable to God. That belief assaults the finished work of Christ and dishonors God, who did all that was necessary for us to have acceptance to Him.