As we begin Ephesians we find Paul in prison in Rome, where he remained for 2 years. During this time, he wrote the letters to the Ephesians, the Philippians and the Colossians. He also wrote the letter Philemon then. Most believe he also wrote Hebrews during this period. But, let’s focus on Ephesians for the moment.
We begin and end with verses 1 and 2 today:
From Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints [in Ephesus], the faithful in Christ Jesus. 2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!
Practically the first words out of Paul's mouth were concerning "the will of God". Here he was, in prison, and he still testifies that he remains an apostle of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, not only is he what he is by the will of God, but he's where he is by that same divine will. God's will is still in operation in his life.
The Roman imprisonment was much more humane than others he had experienced. Ephesians 6:20 and Acts 28:30 tell us that during this time he was "chained"; but, basically he lived in his own rented villa, under "house arrest". (If you look at some of the other Pauline epistles we'll see that other imprisonments were much more dire. One example was his imprisonment in Phillippi, the story of the conversion of the Philippian jailer, as a result of Paul and Silas’ miraculous release by the power of God.)
Still, this Roman imprisonment was imprisonment, and Paul testified that God had willed it that he should be there, for that span of time. Paul was a real go-getter. He would have much preferred to be “out and about”, preaching the gospel in person, mainly to the Gentile world. However, think about this: would followers of Messiah Yeshua have much of the Renewed Covenant Scriptures, the New Testament so called, if God had not slowed Paul down enough for him to write it?! Do you think that Paul saw his imprisonment in this light then? I doubt it.
It is easy to embrace God's will when things are running along as we would prefer. It is easy to "do" His will at those times also. The true test of our submission and obedience is when His will runs contrary to ours.
A while back, I was reading a fellow blogger's book review of a new book about C.S. Lewis' eventual wife, Joy Davidson Lewis. C.S. Lewis even wrote a book about his wife; it is called “Surprised by Joy.” One of the startling facts of their relationship is that they were married for only 4 years before her death from cancer, though their friendship had begun years earlier. "How tragic!", we might exclaim. Was it cruel of God to give them only 4 years of wedded bliss?
When God's will when it does not line up with ours, we begin to ask all sorts of questions: "Did I do something wrong?" "Is this my fault?" "Why is this happening?"
You know them because, like me, you've asked them at some point or another.
Notice that Paul did not begin his epistle with a "Woe is me" attitude, though certainly he had rather been charging down the missions trail, starting churches, winning souls. That was the level of his zeal. But, it was not God's will for him at that time. Imprisoned, how could he continue to impact the spread of the gospel? Answer: he could, by the inspiration of God, write letters to infant churches - - - letters which have endured and which still speak to those who seek the Savior, thousands of years later.
Are you in a place today where God's will is a mystery? Perhaps your computer crashed recently, right in the middle of a big project. That's a relatively "little thing", a pebble in the shoe. Perhaps the entire mountainside of boulders seems to be resting on you, crushing your body, soul and spirit. Perhaps, like me, you received some disconcerting medical news last week. Are you having trouble discerning God's will or even finding God at all, underneath those crushing rocks? He is still there, and He is with you.
Don't fret that you cannot see or even hear Him. Keep praying and keep trusting. Remain faithful through the time of testing. Your faith is being exercised, strengthened. As you respond in obedience and trust, God will do amazing things, which may not be fully known in your lifetime. We are not given to see the end, but we serve the One who "knows the end from the beginning" (Isaiah 46:10) .
Notice that, even in prison, Paul sends "grace and peace" to the church at Ephesus, and in the middle of your confusion or dismay, he sends it to you as well. Dwell in the grace and peace of Jesus Christ. Let them roll over your spirit like a mighty wave of the ocean. God has a divine plan, and it (just like He!) is GLORIOUS! His love is ever with you, His child, and you are privileged because you are being used to accomplish His purposes and bring Him glory!
Have you ever inherited anything? I'm not talking about physical, genetic inheritance of X and Y chromosomes, such as having large ears. I'm talking about tangible, physical possessions. Have you ever inherited "riches"?
Both of my grandmothers have now passed on to be with Jesus. They were of different temperaments, but both of them liked pretty jewelry. From each I inherited a ring, one white gold, the other yellow. I also inherited a couple of nice rings from my godmother and from my mother, although she is still living. I wear one of them almost every day, on the fourth finger of my right hand. To me, those rings are "riches", not because of their material worth, but because of whom and what they represent. They represent the wonderful memories of my grandmothers, and my godmother, a unique "belonging".
I wear two other rings every day: my wedding rings, on the fourth finger of my left hand, and a "betrothal ring" (in the sense that Jewish brides of ancient times wore betrothal rings) on the index finger of my right hand. This last ring signifies that I am betrothed to Jesus Christ. All of these rings are treasures to me, because of the love they represent.
In Ephesians 1, Paul begins to describe the vast wealth every Christ-follower, every Believer, possesses, not by his or her own virtue, but by virtue of what God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have done for us. As children, heirs, of our triune God, we inherit these riches by faith; and then, we invest our spiritual wealth through our resulting good works. We are the world's RICHEST people!
Some of the themes in today's passage I wrote about this past January, when we were studying Galatians; among them were Calvinism, Arminianism, election, free will, and adoption as sons. The posts are linked below, and I'm not going to "plow that ground over".
http://resplendentdaughter.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-galatian-oreo.html
http://resplendentdaughter.blogspot.com/2016/01/heirs-by-adoption.html
What I am going to do in our study of Ephesians is to borrow heavily from the great Warren Wiersbe1 to look at some of the terms in this passage more deeply and to focus on our great spiritual inheritance.
Let’s move on to verse 3.
3Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ. 4For he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we may be holy and unblemished in his sight in love. 5He did this by predestining us to adoption as his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure of his will – 6to the praise of the glory of his grace that he has freely bestowed on us in his dearly loved Son. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8that he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight. 9He did this when he revealed to us the secret of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10toward the administration of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ – the things in heaven and the things on earth. 11In Christ we too have been claimed as God’s own possession, since we were predestined according to the one purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will 12so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, would be to the praise of his glory.
Ephesians 1:3-12 (NET)
Looking at this passage is sort of like "reading Jesus' will". He wrote a will, died to make it so and now reigns at the right hand of God the Father as our Advocate (attorney), to ensure that the terms of His will are carried out! What do we inherit from and through Christ, as Believers, His children?
1. We were chosen to be Christ Jesus' heirs.
Here, I want to mention Warren Wiersbe's distinction between "election" and "predestination". He describes "election" as God seeking the lost sinner. This is the first beginning of salvation. The lost person, left on his or her own, cannot seek God. Paul proclaims the unregenerate soul as completely “dead in trespasses and sins”. So, He, God initiates the process. Salvation begins with God alone, which means it is totally of His doing. Because He chose us before the foundations of the world were laid is a testament to His unfathomable foreknowledge. In the Bible, "election" is always TO something; there is always a purpose. In this case, the purpose of our election is for us to then exercise our free will and accept God's salvation through Jesus Christ, which God foreknew we would do. He does not make our choices for us, but He always knows what we will choose.
By contrast, Wiersbe characterizes "predestination" as being a word used to refer to those who have already submitted to and accepted Yeshua HaMashiach by faith. You will never see this word used in scripture in connection with a lost person, someone who has been denied the opportunity to choose salvation. Predestination is also a word that refers to purpose, namely the "investing" of our inheritance by the good works born from saving faith.
Confused yet, Bible Nerds? :) Well, I found Wiersbe's explanation of these terms interesting, and I hope you did also. It is difficult to explain them, but we certainly cannot ignore them. Remember, we will not have perfect understanding this side of eternity, and maybe not even then! That's ok. There is a lot of wasted time and breath spent on theological posturing of what you may recognize as the Arminians (free will proponents) and the Calvinists (election proponents). I do not think such arguing is edifying. According to the Scriptures, somehow both are true. Let’s leave it at that and move on to another important theme in these verses: adoption.
2. We were accepted by God and adopted as sons.
These themes have to do with our legal standing in the sight of God, because of Jesus Christ. He could have just "accepted us", saved us from Hell, and left it at that. That blessing of regeneration, of new birth, alone would have been much, much more than any of us deserved. But, He did not leave us as a relative who was "left" only $1.00 in the will.
One of my favorite TV ads at the moment concerns a much-beloved cat named, Mr. Marbles. It’s an ad for a mail-order pet items company, which shall remain nameless. Don’t want YouTube to slap me. At any rate, this elderly gentleman passes, and the family is in the lawyer’s office for the reading of the will. The cat is granted anything he desires from the pet items company, the daughter is left control of the man’s enterprises, and one of the sons, Todd, is left a model-train set. The heirs ask about the summer house, only to learn that it too has been left to Mr. Marbles. At the humans’ exclamations, he looks at Todd and says, “Well, you did get a train set, Todd...” The cat, Mr. Marbles, was obviously not a biological offspring of the dead man. He was, in a sense, adopted by him, and obviously much-beloved.
God did not leave us as a "red-headed step-child" or a "poor relation", as we Southerners are wont to say. No. He went on to adopt us. What does that mean?
You may be familiar with this idiom: "a marked man". It generally refers to someone who is in danger of harm from someone else. Or, it can mean a person bears some distinguishing mark which sets him or her apart from others. Jesus was a "marked man" for most of His ministry, and then he showed the "marks" of his crucifixion in His hands, feet and side, in appearances after His resurrection.
What marks do you bear in your body? In mine, I bear a scar in the middle of my forehead from a tumble I took as a toddler, and one on my knee from one I took as a youth. My body shows evidence of giving birth, twice....various adventures in the dental office, pierced ears...I could go on with this boring recitation, but won't.
A family friend broke a bone last week. Now, that bone will heal. But, when it is viewed on the x-ray, it will always show evidence of having been broken. The bone is forever changed.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and Ephesians 1:13-14 brought it to the forefront of my mind this morning.
13And when you heard the word of truth (the gospel of your salvation) – when you believed in Christ – you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of his glory.
Let me juxtapose here another, related verse, 2 Corinthians 5:17 - -
So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; what is old has passed away--look, what is new has come.
(NET)
There is such a thing as "spiritual DNA". We are born with a flawed type of it, a type that is hopelessly contaminated with sin. But when we hear the gospel (1:13 above) and accept Jesus as Savior, that DNA with which we were born ("born into sin") is forever, eternally changed.
It's pretty amazing, really. Think of it as a "chemical change". I took just enough chemistry in high school to be dangerous, (thank you, Dr. Singh!). But, I did learn enough to know that when two things are merged/combined, they might make a mixture, defined as a combination that can later be separated. For example, if you combine iron filings with grains of salt, a magnet will separate the iron from the salt for you. A mixture is not a "forever change". Both (or however many) different entities retain their original properties, clear and distinct from each other. There is no chemical change that occurs.
When you combine things like vinegar and baking soda, however, there is a chemical change. You can see it occur, and after it occurs, the chemist is no longer able to separate the vinegar from the baking soda again. They are both forever altered.
So, what does that have to do with salvation of the soul? When one accepts Christ, His Holy Spirit enters the body, soul and spirit in some way we cannot quantify or fully comprehend. The "old" becomes "new", the scriptures declare! This is a forever change.
In Ephesians, Paul describes the Holy Spirit as a "mark", making Christians "marked people".
Is this a mark that one can physically see? Sometimes. Unbelievers or yet-to-become-believers will sometimes remark, "There's something different about him/her..." I don't know about you, but I've met people I immediately knew were believers, not by their appearance, but rather by the presence of the Holy Spirit in and around them.
This happened to me at a conference, and I'll never forget it. A lady came up to me at one of the breaks - - a lady I'd never met or heard of - - and asked if I was a Christian. She said she could see the Holy Spirit in me. Not so stunning when you consider Romans 8:16 - - -
The Spirit Himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God's children,
(HCSB)
True Christians all have the same Spirit, the Spirit of their Savior, and that Spirit testifies that they are God's children.
21Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, 22who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.
2 Corinthians 1:21-22 (NET)
We are "God's own possession" because His Spirit inhabits and possesses us. Christians are as marked for all eternity as Christ's wounds are. God will keep His Word. He is unchangeable. We can rest in that certainty of eternal destiny.
Have we received all of our eternal inheritance in Christ?
Not entirely, and we won't have received all until we are with Him, in glory. But, because of the Holy Spirit, because He has marked us, we know we have as much of God's wealth that we can possibly handle here on earth and WILL receive all of the riches in Christ Jesus when we step onto the golden shore of that beautiful land called Heaven.
I mentioned a little bit ago that I have a couple of my mother’s rings. A few years ago, after she entered her 90s, she decided to give away all her jewelry to her daughters. I guess she wanted to control who got what. But, at any rate, this is a tangible illustration of the Holy Spirit being the downpayment of our eternal salvation. The bulk of our spiritual inheritance will be received after this life, but we have the assurance of it, the downpayment of it now, within us. He, who lives within us, is our guarantor, God’s pledge, of everlasting life. We are forever sealed in Him.
Let’s move on to verses 15-19.
15. For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you when I remember you in my prayers. 17I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you spiritual wisdom and revelation in your growing knowledge of him,18– since the eyes of your heart have been enlightened – so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19and what is the incomparable greatness of his power toward us who believe, as displayed in the exercise of his immense strength.
In verse 15, we see that Paul is commending the Ephesian church for, first of all, their faith in Jesus Christ and, second, for their love for their fellow believers. This parallels the new "first and second commandments" Jesus enunciated in Matthew 22:38-39. Paul is commending what he desires to see continue. He issues similar commendations to the Colossian church (Col. 1:4, Philemon 1:5) and to Timothy (2 Timothy 1:13).
Paul goes on to say that he shows his love for the Ephesians by praying unceasingly for them. What specifically does he pray?
That God will give them wisdom as their knowledge of Him increases. (They are not the same thing, you know -- - wisdom and knowledge. You can know a lot about Jesus and not have Him in your heart. You can have Him in your heart as Savior, and know a lot about Him and still not possess but a thimble-full of wisdom and discernment.).So, what Paul desired for them, and what we should desire for ourselves, is both - - knowledge AND wisdom
That they might have hope that His calling is steadfast, firm and sure. (It's so easy to doubt that God is with us, isn't it? So easy to doubt that He cares, at times?)
That they might realize how very rich they are in Jesus Christ!
That, as believers, they might realize the extent of God's power (in their lives and in others').This is one that I personally do not excel at. I consistently underestimate God’s power to move and do and to glorify His name through my circumstances and in the lives of others.
I don't pray for myself and my fellow members of the Body as much as I should. I mean, I pray for them, but I certainly don’t fulfill the exhortation from the apostle Paul to “pray without ceasing”.
See, Paul really believed that God would work, move, demonstrate His glory, in response to Paul's prayers. Because he believed that so strongly, he prayed "unceasingly". I have to question my own level of belief when confronted with my own comparative prayerlessness. My prayers tend to be narrow and more "reactive" than "proactive". In other words, if someone asks me to pray for them, I will. But, do I pray for them "proactively", as Paul describes here? Not so much.
Do you know what happens when we fail to pray for our brothers and sisters (our shoulder-buddies) in this fashion? We run the risk of loving them poorly.
Let me give you a painful example, painful to me, at least. I was confronted years ago with the reality that I had failed a sister in Christ, one who was most definitely a "shoulder-buddy". (Get the scene of two people hooked together like two oxen who bear the yoke on their backs in order to pull the wagon.) She had given clues that she had unmet needs in our local Body of Christ, but I was oblivious. (If you are now thinking, "This can't end well"....well, you are right. It didn’t.)
When we don't pray for each other, we are not "in tune" with one another. We become like a wonderful orchestra whose instruments are slightly off-key. And, as a result, instead of producing heavenly music, what's produced is a ghastly cacophony of sound. Have you ever gone to hear a live symphony or band performance? Before it begins, the instruments are all playing....whatever they want to. Cacophony! Although purposeful (warming up the instruments and the players) it sounds like mayhem! Then, the concertmaster, usually the first-chair violin (orchestra) or first chair clarinet or oboe (band) silences the group by giving one long, clear note. Immediately, the musicians tune their individual instruments to that one unifying note. When they next start to play a beautiful piece of music it is just that....beautiful!
Prayer does that! It unifies believers in the heavenly realms. I don't understand prayer more than just a little tiny bit. If you are an expert, then please enlighten me. But, in my view, prayer is like looking through the keyhole....You can see a very limited view, and what you DO see is distorted! You have no idea what else is "out there", on the other side of the door. Our perspective of prayer is like that! We pray, not being allowed to see all that our prayers accomplish! That is God's way.
Sometimes, He allows us to see clear answers; a lot of the time, He does not. Almost all the time, we have no clue as to the effectiveness of our prayers. Accordingly, we tend to think prayer does not matter. Many Christians view it as merely a Christian "convention", an archaic trapping of religious gatherings.
How sad, when the Bible makes clear that prayer is indispensable to the spiritual warfare in which we are engaged.
Luke 6:12 And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.
Luke 18:1 And he spoke a parable to them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;
The Happy Pastor says this: "Prayer is the essential work – everything else flows out of it: worship, evangelism, ministry."1
You know, I've noticed that, in the past, when I blogged about prayer, I didn't get many hits. Christians don't like to read about prayer because, like me today, it stirs their hearts with conviction. Non-Christians view it as "talking to the great sky fairy". Maybe you are like me and are convicted about your "prayer life". If so, then let's take deliberate steps to go before God's throne of grace more often. What a wonderful privilege it is!
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Do you know what a hob-nail boot is? It's a boot with short nails inserted into the sole in a regular pattern. The primary purpose for these nails is to give the sole more durability, but they also serve to give traction to the boot. No slippery soles with hob-nails. You step on something with a hob-nail boot and whatever you step on isn't going anywhere.
I figure there are situations in most of our lives, our halacha, which frustrate us. In my case, I get very aggravated when I see .... well, let's just call it "evil prospering". I do not like to see evil prosper. When the anti-God side wins, it makes me mad, especially when I've poured heart and soul into what "should" have been "the winning side". Are you feelin' what I'm feelin' this morning? Can you point to an area like this in your life and say, "uhm-hm, yeah...."
It SEEMS like God is oblivious, at times like that, doesn't it? Paul must have felt this type of consternation because he often referenced it in his letters. We see this in verses 20-23.
20which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church,23which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
In a moment I'm going to reference some other places Paul echoes this same theme. But first, look at Psalm 110:1 - -
Of David. A psalm. The LORD says to my lord: "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet."
Yes, this verse has dual applicability, like a lot of OT prophetic scriptures. It referred to David's reign, first of all, but also to God's speaking to Jesus, in one of those intra-Godhead conversations. You may recall that Jesus tied the Pharisees up in knots over this verse, in Matthew 22:41-46. In that exchange, by the way, He was declaring his Messiahship to them; but, they were unable to either see or embrace Him as such. In Acts 2:34-35, Luke referenced this same verse from Psalms, recounting Peter's sermon on the Day of Pentecost, the very day the Holy Spirit was given.
Here, now, are the other Pauline references:
For he "has put everything under his feet." Now when it says that "everything" has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ.
1 Cor. 15:27
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.
Ephesians 4:15
And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.
Colossians 1:18
12but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, SAT DOWN AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD, 13waiting from that time onward UNTIL HIS ENEMIES BE MADE A FOOTSTOOL FOR HIS FEET.
Hebrews 10:12-13
The last enemy to be eliminated is death.
1 Cor. 15:26
This plan of God's, to give Jesus Christ the spot of King Jesus, has been going on long before Jesus was ever born as a human baby. The same Person of the Triune Godhead who was the Creator-of-all is the same One who put on flesh (Greek: sarx) and the same One who now sits at the right hand of God the Father, advocating for us, interceding for us ... and ruling over the Church as well as this entire world. Death - - the last enemy to be destroyed. Oh, He triumphed over death when He rose from the grave, but He will not totally destroy death (as it still serves His plan) until "the end of time", as described in Revelation.
So, why can't we see clearly God’s plan for the future, our future, the future of our country, our world? We are not designed to see God's master plan, unfurled outside of the bounds of Time. If we could, we would not need faith, would we? But, even then, our humanity limits our understanding. Even in those times when God peeled back a corner of Heaven and revealed to one of us His ways, we dealt with that knowledge in incredibly imbecilic fashion, generally speaking. He is "beyond us" - - far past our limited understanding.
Still, He rules. He reigns. Even when it does not look like it around here. Even when it appears as if evil is crowing triumphantly, evil is a pawn in God's mighty hand. Ephesians 1:21 emphasizes that NO spiritual entity or power is superior to Christ Jesus, NO matter how things appear. Christ's "hob-nail boot" is on Satan's neck. “It is finished”, (in the Greek, “tetelestai”) Yeshua said on the execution stake. Satan.IS.Defeated.Done.
Seeing is not believing, unless you are looking with eyes of faith. And, this finishes our study of Ephesians 1.
