Even in him—in whom we wore also made his inheritance. This is the literal rendering of ἐκληρώθημεν, and it is more expressive than the A.V., "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance." God taking us for his own heritage involves more than our getting an inheritance from God (see Deuteronomy 4:20, "The Lord hath taken you...
to be unto him a people of inheritance"). It is implied that God will protect, care for, improve, and enjoy his own inheritance; he will be much with them and do all that is necessary for them. Formerly God's inheritance was Israel only; but now it is much wider.
All that God was to Israel of old he will be to his Church now. Having been predestinated according to the purpose. The reason why the reference to predestination is repeated is to show that this new privilege of the whole Church as God's inheritance is not a fortuitous benefit, but the result of God's deliberate and eternal foreordination; it rests therefore on an immovable foundation.
Of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will. Predestination is not an exception to God's usual way of working; he works, or works out ( ἐνεργοῦτος) all things on the same principle, according to the decision to which his will comes.
When we think of the sovereign will of God as determining all things, and in particular determining who are to be his heritage, we must remember how differently constituted the will of an infinitely holy Being is from that of frail and fallen creatures.
The fallen creature's will is often whimsical, the result of some freak or fancy; often, too, it is the outcome of pride, avarice, sensual affection, or some other evil feeling; but God's will is the expression of his infinite perfections, and must always be infinitely holy, wise, and good.
Willfulness in man is utterly different from willfulness in God; but the recoil we often have from the doctrine of God's doing all things from his mere bene placitum, or according to the counsel of his own will, arises from a tendency to ascribe to his will the caprice which is true only of our own.