Ephesians 1
A few weeks ago, the church I attend
began a forty-day study of the book of Ephesians. I have not been able to attend
any of the studies so am studying on my own. I remember years ago studying the
New Testament in seminary and am eager to learn afresh what God wants to tell
me.
As I began this study, I remembered
that Paul’s letters begin with a greeting and introduction as to who he was.
They often contain a preamble that lets you know on what he planned to teach. The
book of Ephesians follows that same pattern, but I found or re-learned
something in my current study. Chapter one includes a section on what God has
done for the Ephesian church and a prayer from Paul for them. If you have not
read Ephesians chapter one recently, I encourage you to do that now before you
continue this study.
As quick lists, here are the things Paul said God did and
things for which Paul prayed for the Ephesian Christians and faithful followers
of Christ.
What
God Did:
He
chose us before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless. (vs. 4)
He
predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters. (vs. 5)
He
freely bestowed His grace on us. (vs. 6)
He
gave us redemption through Christ’s blood. (vs. 7)
He
gave us forgiveness of sin because of His grace. (vs. 7)
He
lavished His grace upon us. (vs. 8)
He
made known to us the mystery of His will because of His kindness. (vs. 9)
He
summed up all things on Christ on earth and in heaven. (vs. 10)
He
gave us an inheritance because He predestined it based on His wisdom.(vs. 11)
Because
He gave us this inheritance through His grace, we are for the praise of His
glory. (vs. 12)
He
sealed us with His Holy Spirit. (vs. 13)
He
gave the Holy Spirit as a pledge of our inheritance because we believed and
redeemed. (vs. 14)
What
Paul Prayed (for the faithful)
That
God would give wisdom, revelation, and knowledge in recognizing Him. (vs. 17)
That
God will enlighten the eyes of our heart to know the hope of His calling, the
riches of the glory of His inheritance. (vs.18)
That
God will give us the surpassing knowledge of the greatness of His power towards
us with the working strength of His might. (vs. 19)
That
we will know these occurred in accordance with the working of the strength of
His might, which He brought about in Christ when He (vs. 19-20)
raised
Him from the dead (vs. 20)
seated
Him at His right hand in the heavenly places (vs. 20)
far
above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is
named (vs. 21)
to
change this age and also the one to come. (vs. 21)
He
put all things in subjection under His feet (vs. 22)
And
gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness
of Him who fills all in all. (vs. 22-23)
From the first section under “What
God has done for His children,” verse 3 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly
places in Christ.” As I read this, I wondered what the spiritual blessings were
to which Paul referred. I can think of many things God has done, but what is a spiritual
blessing? This led me to a discovery. Paul outlined these blessings in the eleven
subsequent verses. Each of these blessings are God’s actions and thoughts
toward us; we did nothing to get them.
In verse four we find that God chose us
before He created humankind and the world, to be holy and blameless before Him.
He chose to have an eternal relationship with us; that is why He created us. He
created us for relationship. When Adam and Eve sinned against God by eating
from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they broke relationship with
Him because He, in His holiness and purity, cannot be in the presence of evil. Yet,
we learn from this verse, God chose us to be holy and blameless so He had a
plan to renew our relationship with Him. Paul expands this teaching further in
chapter two, especially in verse ten.
Verses five through six carry on
from this. Verse five says, “He predestined us to adoption as sons through
Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will.” This
affirms again that God chose us, He predestined that we would be His children
one way or the other. God’s plans cannot be thwarted by humankind. God planned
from the foundation of the world our adoption as His children. Paul began in
the verse to explain how God planned to adopt us to bring us back into
relationship with Him. He gave us a glimmer of what he spoke and developed later
in his letter to the Ephesians. God, through Jesus Christ and because of the
kind intentions of His will, provided a way for us to be cleansed from the
darkness of our sin. This adoption and kindness of God comes from God’s grace.
Grace is defined as God’s riches at Christ’s expense.
We receive God’s riches, an inheritance, at because of Christ’s death as our
substitute. Paul and all followers of Christ praise God because of His grace,
which He freely gave us. We do not deserve this great kindness and love of God
to remove our sins at the expense of the life of His Son. Nothing we can do
makes us worthy of this grace from Holy God. Paul developed this teaching
further in Ephesians 2.
Paul added more in this first chapter. He
stated, “In Him (Jesus Christ) we have redemption (our death penalty redeemed
by the death of a substitute) through His blood, the forgiveness of our
trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.” Because Jesus in His
gracious love for us chose to die as a substitute for our death, which our
sinfulness required, we can be made pure, one hundred percent clean from our
sins. God’s forgiveness comes to us through Jesus’ death, His blood poured out
instead of ours. This redemption and forgiveness is because of God’s great
grace, His insurmountable and unlimited kindness and love. Paul used a word
that describes the limitlessness of God’s grace. He said God “lavished” His
grace upon us. Lavished means to be over and above measuring, to be abundantly
overflowing. Paul talked more about the limitless grace and love of God in
chapter three. He said he wants us to grasp how high and wide and deep is the
“love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge so that we may be filled up to all
the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:18-19).
God, in wisdom and insight, “made known to us
the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention” according to Paul in
verse nine. Paul spoke more on this mystery in Ephesians 3, but summed up for
us here what God’s will is – to bring all humankind back into a relationship
with Him through the death, resurrection, and reign of Jesus Christ. God
provided for us this way back to Him because of His love. He made it known to
us because of His kindness and love. What good is a plan for others if they do
not realize a plan was made for them. Paul continued to summarize God’s mystery
by stating that all things on heaven and earth will be in subjection to Christ
at the fullness of time, when He returns to earth. Then the kingdom of God will
reign forever. Christ’s death was not just for us to experience now as a once
off cleansing. His death and resurrection occurred so that we could have
eternal life with Him when all things are under His gracious and wise authority
and dominion.
Paul stated in verses eleven and twelve, “In
Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His
purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we
who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory.” He
reiterated it again for emphasis. God adopted us and they will receive a full
inheritance with His Son as children of God. The inheritance we receive is
eternal life with an unbroken relationship with the Father. This idea was not a
backup plan after Adam, Eve, and humankind sinned. God foreknew humankind would
sin. He predestined a plan for our salvation because of His love for us out of
His unlimited mercy and kindness. Because we asked for forgiveness and accepted
His love, He made us His children. We get to praise His glory – His excellence,
magnificence, and majesty. Our word “doxology” comes from this Greek word
translated as “glory.” We praise God for who He is and what He has done.
Paul said, in verses thirteen and fourteen,
God sealed us in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise. He gave us the Holy
Spirit in our hearts “as a pledge of our inheritance,” our redemption and
eternal life with Him, “to the praise of His glory.” Paul preached this in His
letter to the Ephesians. He praised God and taught the Ephesian Christians to
praise God for what He did for them. The Holy Spirit is our pledge from God of
our inheritance as His children. The Holy Spirit is not just our guide,
comforter, and teacher, but is our pledge from God. How great is that?
To sum up God’s spiritual blessings for the
Ephesian Christians according to Paul, God adopted them. We must be more
specific though. God chose them before the foundation of the world to be holy
and blameless. He predestined them to be adopted as His children through Jesus
Christ because of His kindness. God bestowed His grace freely on them. He
redeemed them from their merited death by Jesus’ substituted death. God forgave
them of their sins because of His grace. He lavished His grace on them. He made
known the mystery of His will to them. God gave all things to the authority and
dominion of Christ on earth and in heaven. He gave them hope in Christ. God
gave them the pledge of His Holy Spirit as a sign of their inheritance. The Ephesian
Christians and we did not do anything to acquire salvation and adoption. God
did it all.
The second section of this opening chapter of
Ephesians is Paul’s prayer for the Ephesian Christians. Keep aware as you will
notice overlapping between this prayer and God’s spiritual blessings of His
children. Paul prayed for the Ephesian Christians giving thanks for them and
asking God to give them certain things. First, Paul asked God to give them a
spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. This means that Paul
asked God to give them His knowledge in truth and instruction, which they did
not have before they became Christians. He asked that God give the Ephesian Christians
knowledge and practice for godly living and for teaching Christian truth to
other people.
Second, Paul prayed that their hearts would
be enlightened so that they would know three things – 1) what is the hope of
His calling (vs. 18), 2) what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in
the saints (vs. 18), and 3) what is the surpassing greatness of His power
toward those who believe (vs. 19a). Paul asked that they would be illumined or
instructed because they are now of the household of God regarding what is their
joyful expectation of eternal life. This is the hope that Christ gives to
Christians, joyful expectation of eternal life. Nothing can take it away from
believers. Paul developed this in Ephesians 4. He asked God to guide them to
understand the “riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.” He
wanted them to realize the abundance from God’s grace of blessedness from
having the promise that Christians will be with Christ in heaven. “Inheritance”
in the Greek New Testament is kleronomia.
Kleronomia is the eternal blessedness of the kingdom of God which occurs
after Christ’s second coming, which adopted children of God will have for
eternity. Christian riches come from our inheritance in Christ’s kingdom. The
third thing for which Paul prayed for the Ephesian Christians was that they would
know the exceedingly abundant greatness of God’s power toward those who
believe. God does not just save them for that time; He saved them for eternity.
His power is greater than anything that attempts to hold you back. This is what
Paul stated in Romans 8:37, “But in all things we overwhelmingly conquer
through Him who loved us.” The word used for “power” in verse nineteen is dunamis. We get our word dynamite from
this word. It means strength and power; the ability to do something with great
power. God having power is a great thing to know. What use is power, though, if
not applied for something or someone. Here, in this verse, Paul stated God used
this exceedingly great power toward those who believe. He saved them by His
great love for them and He kept them safe by His great power. No one can ever
snatch them from God’s hands. Read Romans 8:31-39 for more on this.
Paul continued in verse nineteen by stating
that these three things are according to the working of God’s great power. The
Greek word translated as “working” is energeia
and is used only of superhuman strength in the New Testament. God’s power is
greater than any person’s. This power is that which God brought about in Christ
when He raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heaven.
God exercised this power in Christ toward us who believe so that we could
always have the hope of eternal life with Him. Paul developed this more in
Ephesians 3:7 and 6:10.
The place of honor God the Father gave Christ
by seating Him at his right hand in heaven shows the Son is a part of the
Godhead and that He has all authority and power. Paul named those people and
beings over whom Christ ruled. Christ reigns over all rule/rulers. “Rule” is
the Greek word arche and means leader
or magistracy. Christ reigns over all authority (exousia). Exousia means
the command and power of created beings under which others must submit
themselves. Christ reigns over all powers and dominions. “Power” is dunamis, which means the power which a
person or things exerts and puts forth. “Dominion” is kuriotes, which includes the power of lords, rulers, and kings.
Jesus reigns over all created beings who reign - human, angelic, and Satanic.
Jesus’ power is greater than every being or thing, even death, because He is
part of the Godhead. Paul further stated that Jesus Christ’s name is over every
name that is named for all ages (aion
– a perpetuity of time).
The Father gave the Son power over all things
and beings. He put them in subjection under His feet, too (vs. 22). They do not
have power over Christ. They must obey Him. The Father made Christ the head
over all things to the Church. Jesus Christ is the foundation and the head of
the Church. Paul said this in Colossians 1:18 and in Ephesians 4. In verse
twenty-three, Paul spoke of “the fullness of Him.” By this he meant, the Church
is the body of Christ. “Fullness” in the original Greek comes from the word pleroma meaning the body of believers
who are filled to completeness with and by Christ’s presence, power, and
riches. “All in all” in this verse means that Christ has redeemed some of all
sorts; He does not restrict His redemption to just one kind of person. Christ
redeems Jew and Greek, rich and poor, slave and free, which Paul explained in
Galatians 3:28 and Colossians 3:11. Hence, verses twenty-two and twenty-three
can be stated like this: “And God put all things in subjection under Christ’s
feet and gave Him as the head over the Church, which is His body, who are
filled to completeness with and by Christ’s presence, power, and riches and
which Church is made up of people from all walks of life.”
Paul’s prayer for the Ephesian Christians
included that they would recognize and come to know Christ with a deep
knowledge that led to godly living and Christian teaching. He prayed they would
be enlightened and would know the hope of His calling, “the riches of the glory
of His inheritance,” and the exceeding greatness of His power for and toward
them. Paul prayed they would understand and know it was in accordance with the
superhuman energy used of the strength of God’s might that raised Christ from
the dead, seated Him at His right hand, and gave Him power over all things in
heaven and earth. Paul prayed that the Ephesian Christians would know Jesus as
the head of the body of Christ, the church, and would grow stronger in the
knowledge of His presence, power, and riches.
After studying this, two questions arise. Do
I show in my life what God has done? Can I say that Paul was praying these
things over me? Paul wrote these things to the Ephesian Christians. Do they
apply to every Christian? When I re-read the opening of the letter, I noticed
in verse one that Paul addressed the letter “to the saints who are at Ephesus
and who are faithful in Christ Jesus” [NASB]. I wondered if other English
versions of the Bible translated it this way. I discovered most translations do
state it in this way. Yet I found two that do not, Young’s Literal Translation
and the Duoay-Rheims Bibles. The first was translated in 1898 by a Scottish
Presbyterian who was fluent in several languages and was a printer. The latter
in 1899 from the Latin Vulgate by the Catholic Church. This difference in
translations piqued my interest so I had my scholar husband translate it from
the Greek Bible. He translated it as follows: “Paul, apostle of Jesus Christ
through God, to saints to the ones which are in Ephesus and to the faithful in
Christ Jesus.” Paul addressed the letter to the saints in Ephesians and
to all faithful followers of Christ. He wrote the letter to all Christians “not
only in this age, but also in the one to come” (Eph. 1:21). This means that God
did these things for me. He chose me before the foundation of the world to be
holy and blameless. God predestined me to be adopted by Him according to His
kindness and grace. He freely bestowed His grace on me and gave me redemption
through the death of Christ. Through Christ’s death I have forgiveness of my
sins. God made sure I knew the mystery of His will - He sent His Son to die for
my sins so I would not die eternally. He gave me an inheritance because of His
plan and for His purpose, so that I could have eternal life with Him and praise
Him. God sealed me with His Holy Spirit who He gave as a pledge of my
inheritance because He redeemed me for His own, for which all praise goes to
Him. If God did this for me, He did it for all other faithful
followers/Christians.
Questions arise now because of this. Am I
living as if God has done these magnificent things for me and in me? Can anyone
see in my words and actions God’s grace and call upon me? If Paul meant his
words for all Christians/faithful followers of Christ, what does this mean for
you? Are you living in a way that people watching you realize you are a child
of God, one who inherits redemption and eternal life from Him?
Paul often began his letters by stating what
he would teach the recipients. His prayer in Ephesians 1 tells us what Paul would
be teaching the Ephesians. Paul did not aim to teach only the Ephesian
Christians. He purposely set out to teach every Christian who read his letter
or heard his letter read. Paul had a purpose in this letter. He wanted to correct
false teaching, impart knowledge and wisdom (Christian truth), remind them of
their inheritance and hope of glory, try to express the exceedingly great power
and might of the Father and Son, the purpose of Christ’s death and
resurrection, and the structure and building of the Church/body of Christ. This
is what Paul prayed for the saints and faithful followers to receive from God.
He recognized their weaknesses as Christians and wanted God to make them
stronger. This recognition is what he prayed for them, wrote to them, and
taught them. They needed more teaching regarding what the Father and Son did
for humankind. Paul recognized this was a need for them and for faithful
followers through the ages.
My questions returned repeatedly this week. I
must consider if I am a weak Christian like some of the Ephesians. Am able to
be mislead by false teachings? Am I growing in Christ, who is supposed to be my
Head? Am I helping to build up the church? Am I holding on to the hope of my
salvation? Am I willing to take steps of faith into areas that are outside of
my comfort zone knowing my salvation is secure, that nothing can take me out of
God’s hands? These are not easy questions with which to probe yourself. They
can be painful.
If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you
must do this probing, too. Are you growing in your relationship with Christ? Are
you reading God’s Word and studying it? Are you sure of your salvation and
holding onto the hope of glory so that no matter what, you understand you are
in God’s hands? Are you willing to take steps of faith from where you are
comfortable? Have you considered that your growth or lack is what contributes
to the stability of the growth of the church?
These are not easy questions to apply to your
life. They were not easy for me either. Paul wrote to all Christians. What God
did through His Son, Jesus Christ, applies to each of us.
If you are not a
Christian, you have a decision to make.
Will you chose to
recognize and follow the God who chose you and predestined you to be His
adopted child?
If you are a
Christian,
Are you growing in
your relationship with God?
Can people see from
your words and actions that you are a follower of Christ?
Begin
there,
at
the heart,
and let God’s
words through Paul lead you to a closer relationship with Him.
It
starts with a first step:
Will
you accept God’s grace and give Him your life?
