“To the praise of the glory of His grace, with which He graced us in the Beloved.” Ephesians 1:6
In the Gospels the word “beloved” is used mainly as an adjective. But here “Beloved” is not an adjective, but a participle (a verbal adjective). A participle is an action word, indicating that something is happening. This participle is in the perfect tense, describing a present state that is going on. Actually, it describes something that began to exist in the past, that exists in the present, and that will continue to exist in the future. Thus, when Ephesians 1:6 declares that we have been “graced in the Beloved,” it refers to Christ in a state of actively being loved by the Father. In other words, this love is not a static kind of love, motionless, or unmoving. It is dynamic. It is constant. It is going on all the time. It never ceases. It is a radiating love that is in the Father all the time, just beaming out. When Paul says that we are graced in “the Beloved,” he is speaking of Christ as the present, living concentration and embodiment of the divine love. He is describing Him as continuously and perpetually being the object of the Father’s love. There is a love-flow going on all the time between the Father and the Son, and we have been escorted by grace into this flow.