Ephesians;- What God has done in Christ

When Paul was writing his earlier letters, like those to Galatia and Corinth, these letters were part of his active pastoral work. He was trying to convince people to think and act differently (the two things go together), and there was no time to give a systematic account of his fundamental teaching. We have to piece it together from the arguments that he’s using and from incidental comments.

Letters like Ephesians and Colossians were written in different circumstances. As a prisoner presumably in Rome, he was no longer living and travelling among the churches of the Aegean region, so he wasn’t in a position to engage in active pastoring there. By necessity, the arguments had died down. Also there was the lapse of time. He had been given more space to organise his thoughts into a more systematic teaching, and that is what we find expressed in these later letters. We can just read through them, without having to disentangle them first. So I’m looking through a few extracts to discover what he says about what God has done for us. Starting from the first chapter.

V3 Our God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is key, because everything that he has done for us has been done “in Christ”. We can understand this in two ways, and we need both of them. On the one hand, the Father was acting through Christ when he did these things. It was Christ who brought these benefits to us. At the same time, Paul surely means that we were “in Christ” when we received them, which is a central feature of his theology.

He has blessed us “with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places”, referring chiefly to the blessings of salvation. It is worth noting that we are not being offered physical blessings in earthly places. The only earthly thing which we are definitely promised as a result of following Jesus is persecution.

V4 It was “in him” that God chose us before the foundation of the world (that is, as part of the plan made in his eternal existence). Since I’m not a Calvinist, I’m not going to insist that his choice of us rules out our choice of him. It’s just that we don’t understand how the two are connected. In fact I’m willing to understand the expression as meaning that God chose the category “those who are in Christ”, and thus chose, by definition, anyone who comes into this category.

The means of choice was that we became “his sons through Jesus Christ” (v5).This is the same teaching as Galatians ch4 v5, that we received “adoption as sons”.

The end-result is that we are freed from our sin, which was hindering our relationship with God. This is what is meant by “holy and blameless before him” (v4). This grace was bestowed upon us “in the Beloved” (v6).

“The forgiveness of our trespasses” in v7 refers to the same result. This is also called “redemption”, a metaphor borrowed from the Old Testament, where God frequently “redeems” his people from a state of “slavery” under their enemies. In this case, of course, our “enemy” is the state of sin.

The important point is that our redemption comes to us “in him” and “through his blood”. That is, we gain forgiveness of sin through our faith in Christ and through the fact that Christ died on the Cross.

In vv9-10 we learn that all this was God’s plan, his will and purpose. It was a “mystery”, in the sense that human minds previously had no knowledge of it, but it has been made known to us “now” (that is, in Paul’s time). It was a plan intended to make God’s purpose complete (it was always part of his purpose that humanity should live with him free from sin). So it was intended to reach completion “in the fullness of time”, at the end of all things.

The goal is to “unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth”. But before anyone starts making a universalist or a mystical statement out of that , it should be pointed out that when that time arrives the things in heaven and earth will include “nothing unclean” (Revelation ch22 v27). They will have been removed already.

As a result of all this, things are promised to us. We have been “destined and appointed to live for the praise of his glory”. Paul applies this especially to the first believers, who have been suffering in the promotion of the gospel.

We have been promised an “inheritance” (v14).

We were promised the Holy Spirit. This promise was made in John’s gospel during the Last Supper. Everyone who has heard and believed the gospel word of truth has already received the Holy Spirit. This could be regarded as part of the promised inheritance, a “first payment”, an assurance that the rest of the inheritance will be coming to us later.

But we were also “sealed with the Holy Spirit”. Our reception of the Holy Spirit was our reception of God’s seal, which identifies us as God’s property. It does for us what circumcision does for the Jews. It is the act of sealing described in Revelation ch7, which identifies those who belong to God just as the later mark of the beast identifies those who belong to the beast. That is why those who are sealed are secure from spiritual attacks (such as the locusts of despair).

This, too, is “to the praise of his glory”.

P.S. Students of theology are encouraged to look through the Greek texts of Ephesians and Colossians and discover similarities of wording. In this passage, certainly, it is easy to find Colossians echoes for “redemption”, “forgiveness of trespasses”, “”mystery”, and “word of truth”. But I doubt if there’s anything very significant in these coincidences. If someone is teaching repeatedly on a particular theme, it would be normal, I should think, for him to develop his own jargon and catchphrases which would reappear every time he spoke and wrote.

At some stage I acquired a copy of Calvin’s sermons on Ephesians (Banner of Truth, 1973). I haven’t been able to get much use out of this book, but if I’m going through parts of Ephesians anyway I might as well draw some relevant extracts from it. Here is part of the fourth Sermon, relating to ch1 v10.

As for this word ‘gather’, St Paul means to show us thereby how we are all of us in a state of dreadful dissipation, till such time as our Lord Jesus Christ restores us. In brief, it is as though he had said that the whole order of nature is as good as defaced, and all things decayed and disordered by the sin of Adam till we are restored in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. … And that is what is meant by the gathering together of which St. Paul speaks here, in order that we may learn how to hate ourselves and to be ashamed of the confusion that is in ourselves and with which the whole world is filled through our sinful life; and. Moreover, learn to magnify God’s goodness so much the more. On the one hand, then, the Holy Ghost warns us in this text not only that we are ourselves in a state of dissipation, but also that we have brought the whole world to the same state and keep it there daily by our sins, and that there is no other remedy but for Jesus Christ to repair everything and make such a gathering and union that we may be joined again to our God.

Yes, a little ordinary posting was still going on in the middle of the drama

I love the book of Ephesians. Most don't understand that it is written to the anointed Christian congregation. That is the 144,000. So many are taught that it is referring to everyone. But that is not the case. The first 3 chapters deal with the heavenly hope, those of us who have been called to serve as kings and priests in heaven. The last 3 chapters deal with the Christian congregation and how a Christian should live. It is directed to the anointed Christian congregation, but applies to their Christian companions who have an earthly hope.

When Paul writes "as he chose us to be in union with him before the founding of the world," in Ephesians 1:4 he is not stating, as many believe that God foreordained the anointed Christian congregation before the earth was created. The word used here for foundation is "to conceive". It is used at Luke 11:50: "so that the blood of all the prophets spilled from the founding of the world may be charged against this generation." The world is referring to wicked humankind, not the earth. So God foreordained the 144,000 before Adam and Eve conceived a child. That is after they had sinned, but before they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden and God declared to them the prophecy of Genesis 3:15.

ETA:

Most of the time the word translated world in the Greek scriptures is in reference to wicked humanity and not the literal earth. The founding of the world would have been the conception of the first human child born, Cain, who was wicked and killed his brother Abel, because Cain's works were wicked and his heart was wicked, and because his brother Abel was a righteous man. The first of a long line of witnesses to the true God Jehovah.

"By faith Abel offered God a sacrifice of greater worth than that of Cain, and through that faith he received the witness that he was righteous, for God approved his gifts, and although he died, he still speaks through his faith."-Hebrews 11:4.