Category Archives: ephesians

A note posted on a religious website, discussing sexuality as a spiritual experience…says “it is OK be monogamist OK to be Gay,  Bi, Straight; OK to be different; OK to follow our own path; OK to make our own choices without being judged, particularly in this community.”

The truth tells us that while people may indulge their sinful desires in that way, we don’t please God like that.

How do we know? Where do we go for direction? We believe there is One Lord, and today we see there is one place where we can go to find the written directions. The “one faith” does not refer to the act of believing, but to the body of doctrines which we believe. The one faith is the Gospel.

(Philippians 1:27 NIV)  Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel

(Jude 1:3 NIV)  Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.

It is not scriptural to speak of “many faiths” or “interfaith activities” as many do. There are not two faiths nor several faiths. There is only one faith that leads into God’s presence and that is the faith founded by the Lord Jesus Christ.

Contrary to what Oprah and others are teaching, there is no other approach to God. If a person wishes to live with God—to be approved and accepted by Him—that person has to approach God through the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ.

(2 Thessalonians 2:13-14 NIV)  But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. {14} He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The point is this: every believer has come to God in the very same way—by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith in Him is the only way, the only true faith. Therefore, standing before God and having come to Him through the same faith, there is no room for any differences. We all stand on the same ground, on the same level: the ground and level of faith.

If you want to be a member of this congregation, realize that we believe there is One body, One Spirit, One Hope, One Lord, and One Faith.

Jude 1:1-4 (ESV)
¹  Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ:
²  May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
³  Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
⁴  For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Why did Jude write this letter?

To warn his readers that the apostates were already on the scene! Peter had prophesied that they would come, and his prophecy had been fulfilled.

He wrote to “exhort” them (Jude 3). In the Greek language, this word was used to describe a general giving orders to the army; hence the atmosphere of this letter is “military.” Jude had started to write a quiet devotional letter about salvation, but the Spirit led him to put down his harp and sound the trumpet! The Epistle of Jude is a call to arms.

The Army (Jude 1-2)

The Captain of the army is Jesus Christ, and the soldiers He commands are people who share a “common salvation” through faith in Him. Jude called them saints and addressed them as sanctified.

Not only are God’s saints set apart, but they are also preserved. This means “carefully watched and guarded.” The believer is secure in Jesus Christ. This same word is used in Jude 6 and 13 (“reserved”) and also in Jude 21 (“keep yourselves”).

The Enemy (Jude 3-4)

I must confess that I sympathize with Jude. I would much rather encourage the saints than declare war on the apostates. But when the enemy is in the field, the watchmen dare not go to sleep. The Christian life is a battleground, not a playground. Jude wasted no time in identifying the enemy.

They were ungodly (v. 4b).

This is one of Jude’s favorite words. While these men claimed to belong to God, they were, in fact, ungodly in their thinking and their living.

They were deceitful (v. 4c).

They “crept in unawares.” The Greek word means “to slip in secretly, to steal in undercover.” How could false brethren get into true assemblies of the saints? The soldiers had gone to sleep at the post! The spiritual leaders in the churches had grown complacent and careless. This explains why Jude had to “blow the trumpet” to wake them up.

They were enemies of God’s grace (v. 4d).

Why did they enter the churches? To attempt to change the doctrine and “turn the grace of our God into lasciviousness” (Jude 4). The word lasciviousness simply means “wantonness, absence of moral restraint, indecency.” A person who is lascivious thinks only of satisfying his lusts, and whatever he touches is stained by his base appetites.

Many scriptures warn us that the apostates would argue, “You have been saved by grace, so you are free to live as you please!” The apostates, like the cultists today, use the Word of God to promote and defend their false doctrines.

They seduce young, immature Christians who have not yet been grounded in the Scriptures. Every soldier of the Cross needs to go through “basic training” in a local church so that he knows how to use the weapons of spiritual warfare.

They denied God’s truth (v. 4e).

Jude was affirming strongly the deity of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God! But the apostates would deny this. They would agree that Jesus Christ was a good man and a great teacher, but not that He was eternal God come in human flesh. The first test of any religious teacher, as we have seen, is, “What do you think of Jesus Christ? Is He God come in the flesh?”

Anyone who denies this cardinal doctrine is a false teacher no matter how correct he may be in other matters. If he denies the deity of Christ, something will always be missing in whatever he affirms.

They were ordained to judgment (v. 4a).

Jude did not write that these men were ordained to become apostates, as though God were responsible for their sin. They became apostates because they willfully turned away from the truth. But God did ordain that such people would be judged and condemned. The Old Testament prophets denounced the false prophets of their day, and both Jesus Christ and His Apostles pronounced judgment on them.

Why should these men be judged by God? To begin with, they had denied His Son! That is reason enough for their condemnation! But they had also defiled God’s people by teaching them that God’s grace permitted them to practice sin.

How, then, should the church respond to the presence of this insidious enemy? By earnestly contending for the faith.

“The faith” refers to that body of doctrine that was given by God through the Apostles to the church. The word doctrine is found at least sixteen times in the Pastoral Epistles alone.

What does it mean to “contend for the faith”? The Greek word is an athletic term that gives us our English word agonize. It is the picture of a devoted athlete, competing in the Greek games and stretching his nerves and muscles to do his very best to win.

You never fight the Lord’s battles from a rocking chair or a soft bed! Both the soldier and the athlete must concentrate on doing their best and giving their all. There must also be teamwork, believers working together to attack and defeat the enemy.

Sometimes you hear well-meaning people say, “Well, it’s fine to contend for the faith, but don’t be so contentious!” While it is true that some of God’s soldiers have been the cause of quarrels and divisions, it is also true that some of them have paid a great price to defend the faith.

As Christian soldiers, we must not fight each other or go around looking for trouble. But when the banner of Christ is in danger of being taken by the enemy, we cannot sit idly by, nor can we ever hope to win the victory by wearing kid gloves.

Paul admonished both Timothy and Titus to make sure the believers were being taught “sound doctrine,” which means “healthy doctrine,” doctrine that promotes the spiritual health of the local church.

While individual teachers and preachers may disagree on the fine points of theology, there is a basic body of truth to which all true Christians are committed.

He exhorted Timothy to entrust the Word to other faithful men (2 Tim. 2:2). You and I would not have the Word today were it not for faithful believers down through the ages who guarded this precious deposit and invested it in others.

The church is always one generation short of extinction. If our generation fails to guard the truth and entrust it to our children, then that will be the end! When you think of the saints and martyrs who suffered and died so that we might have God’s truth, it makes you want to take your place in God’s army and be faithful unto death.

False doctrine is a deadly poison that must be identified, labeled, and avoided. We must always speak the truth in love, and the weapons we use must be spiritual. At the same time, we must dare to take our stand for “the faith” even if our stand offends some and upsets others. We are not fighting personal enemies, but the enemies of the Lord.

It is the honor and glory of Jesus Christ that is at stake. “Fight the good fight of faith” (1 Tim. 6:12).

The Victory (Jude 5-7)

Jude 1:5-7 (ESV)
⁵  Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.
⁶  And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—
⁷  just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

Jude reached back into Old Testament history and gave examples of God’s victory over those who had resisted his authority and turned from the truth. The point Jude was making is that God judges apostates. Therefore, the false teachers who had crept into the church would also one day be judged. Their seeming success would not last; God would have the last word. 

The sin of Israel was rebellious unbelief (Heb. 3:12). The sin of the angels was rebellion against the throne of God. The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was indulging in unnatural lust. Unbelief, rebellion against authority, and sensual indulgence were sins characteristic of the false teachers.

The conclusion is obvious: the apostates will be judged. But, meanwhile, God’s soldiers must stay on duty and see to it that these false teachers do not creep into the ranks and start to lead people astray.

Jude 1:17-25 (ESV)
¹⁷  But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.
¹⁸  They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.”
¹⁹  It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.
²⁰  But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit,
²¹  keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.
²²  And have mercy on those who doubt;
²³  save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.
²⁴  Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy,
²⁵  to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

What can we do practically to oppose the enemy and maintain the purity and unity of the church?

For one thing, we must know the Word of God and have the courage to defend it. Every local church ought to be a Bible institute, and every Christian ought to be a Bible student.  The pulpit needs to declare positive truth as well as denounce error.

Second, we must “watch and pray.”

The Christian life must never stand still; if it does, it will go backward. The enemy is already here and we dare not go to sleep! Spiritual leaders in local congregations need to be alert as they interview candidates for baptism and church membership. Congregations must exercise discernment as they select spiritual leaders.

Finally, we must have the courage to maintain a position of biblical separation from those who deny Christ and the fundamental doctrines of the Word. This does not mean that we separate from fellow believers over minor doctrinal differences, or that we practice “guilt by association.” God’s true army needs to stand together in the battle for truth.

Before Christ’s coming, Gentiles and Jews kept apart from one another. Jews considered Gentiles beyond God’s saving power and therefore without hope.

Gentiles resented Jewish claims of their position of superiority based on their heritage. Christ revealed the total sinfulness of both Jews and Gentiles, and then he offered his salvation to both. Only Christ breaks down the walls of prejudice, reconciles all believers to God, and unifies us in one body.

History shows that most peace missions fail. According to some sources, from 1500 BC to AD 850, there were 7,500 “eternal covenants” agreed upon by various nations in the hope of bringing peace, but no covenant lasted longer than two years.

The only “eternal covenant” that has lasted—and that will last—is the one made by the eternal God, sealed by the blood of Jesus Christ.

It is Christ’s peace mission that Paul explains in this section, and three very important words summarize this great work: separation, reconciliation, and unification.

Separation: What The Gentiles Were (Eph. 2:11-12). In the first ten verses of Ephesians 2, Paul has discussed the salvation of sinners in general, but now he turns to the work of Christ for Gentiles in particular.

Most of the converts in the Ephesian church were Gentiles, and they knew that much of God’s program in the Old Testament involved the Jews.

The Jews had the privilege of being God’s chosen nation to whom he had given his covenant promises (Deuteronomy 7:6).

For centuries, the “circumcision” (Jews) had looked down on the “uncircumcision” (Gentiles) with an attitude that God had never intended them to display. The fact that a Jew had received the physical mark of the covenant was no proof he was a man of faith (Rom. 2:25-29; Gal. 5:6; 6:15).

Those who have trusted Christ have received a spiritual circumcision “made without hands” (Col. 2:11).

But since the hour that God called Abraham, God made a difference between Jews and Gentiles. He made this difference, not that the Jews might boast, but that they might be a blessing and a help to the Gentiles.

God set them apart that He might use them to be a channel of His revelation and goodness to the heathen nations.  Sad to say, Israel kept this difference nationally and ritually, but not morally. Israel became like the lost nations around her.

For this reason, God often had to discipline the Jews because they would not maintain their spiritual separation and minister to the nations in the name of the true God.

The one word that best describes the Gentiles is without. They were “outside” in several respects.

One of the signs of his covenant was circumcision. God required circumcision:

• As a sign of obedience to him.
• As a sign of belonging to his covenant people, because once circumcised, the man would be identified as a Jew forever.
• As a symbol of “cutting off” the old life of sin, purifying one’s heart, and dedicating oneself to God.

More than any other practice, circumcision separated God’s people from their Egyptian and Canaanite neighbors. Pious Jews (“the circumcision”) considered all non-Jews (the “uncircumcised”) to be ceremonially unclean. The Jews erred in believing that circumcision (that done in the body by the hands of men) was sufficient to make them godly without the necessity of inner renewal.

2:12 Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. The Jews considered the Gentiles little better than animals, and the Gentiles resented the Jews for their smug religious superiority. But here in Ephesians, Paul told the Gentile Christians to remember what it felt like to be treated that way, to be seen as unworthy outsiders … and he told them not to return the favor.

He called on them to remember where (and what) they were when God found them: separated from Christ, excluded from his promises, without hope and without God. A bleak picture indeed—but God changed all that by his mercy.

Compared to the Jews, the Gentiles had five distinct disadvantages:

1. They were separate from Christ, having had no expectation of a Messiah to save them.
2. They were excluded from citizenship in Israel. Gentiles could never fully partake of the spiritual privileges promised to Israel, God’s chosen people. While Gentiles could become Jews after an extensive training period, followed by circumcision and baptism, the sense of “exclusion” was never fully removed. Gentiles could never truly be citizens of Israel.
3. They were foreigners to the covenants of the promise. For Paul, the covenant promises were the basis for Israel’s distinctive. The plural (“covenants”) makes the word comprehensive—all of God’s promises to his people, all the distinctive privileges that made them his people. To these, the Gentiles were “foreigners,” meaning that they had no share or part in the promises. Many of the Pharisees would pray daily, “O God, I give thanks that I am a Jew, not a Gentile.”
4. They were without hope. There was no hope for the Gentiles to find the one true God or to obtain anything beyond physical life in this world. The pagan philosophers’ theories about life after death were at best vague and supplied no way to atone for evil committed during a person’s life. They had no “divine promise” and, thus, no basis for hope.
5. They were without God in the world. The Gentiles had many gods, but they were without the one true God. They lived entirely and only in this evil world. Without God, the world was all they had.

It is worth noting that the spiritual plight of the Gentiles was caused not by God but by their own willful sin. Paul said the Gentiles knew the true God but deliberately refused to honor Him (Rom. 1:18-23).

Religious history is not a record of man starting with many gods (idolatry) and gradually discovering the one true God. Rather, it is the sad story of man knowing the truth about God and deliberately turning away from it!

The first eleven chapters of Genesis give the story of the decline of the Gentiles; and from Genesis 12 on (the call of Abraham), it is the story of the Jews. God separated the Jews from the Gentiles that He might be able to save the Gentiles also. “Salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22).

God called the Jews, beginning with Abraham, that through them He might reveal Himself as the one true God. With the Jews He deposited His Word, and through the Jews He gave the world the Savior (Rom. 9:1-5).

Israel was to be a light to the Gentiles that they too might be saved. But sad to say, Israel became like the Gentiles, and the light burned but dimly. This fact is a warning to the church today. When the church is least like the world, it does the most for the world. This was a bleak description indeed. Fortunately, it does not end here, for God himself intervened.

Reconciliation: What God Did For The Gentiles (Eph. 2:13-18) The “but now” in Ephesians 2:13 parallels the “but God” in Ephesians 2:4. Both speak of the gracious intervention of God on behalf of lost sinners.

“Enmity” is the key word in this section (Eph. 2:15-16); and you will note that it is a twofold enmity: between Jews and Gentiles (Eph. 2:13-15) and between sinners and God (Eph. 2:16-18).

Paul describes here the greatest peace mission in history: Jesus Christ not only reconciled Jews and Gentiles, but He reconciled both to Himself in the one body, the church.

The word reconcile means “to bring together again.” A distraught husband wants to be reconciled to his wife who has left him; a worried mother longs to be reconciled to a wayward daughter; and the lost sinner needs to be reconciled to God.

Sin is the great separator in this world. It has been dividing people since the very beginning of human history.

When Adam and Eve sinned, they were separated from God.

Before long, their sons were separated from each other and Cain killed Abel. The earth was filled with violence (Gen. 6:5-13) and the only remedy seemed to be judgment.

But even after the Flood, men sinned against God and each other, and even tried to build their own unity without God’s help.

The result was another judgment that scattered the nations and confused the tongues. It was then that God called Abraham, and through the nation of Israel, Jesus Christ came to the world.

It was His work on the cross that abolished the enmity between Jew and Gentile and between sinners and God.

The enmity between Jews and Gentiles (vv. 13-15). God had put a difference between Jews and Gentiles so that His purposes in salvation might be accomplished. But once those purposes were accomplished, there was no more difference.

In fact, it was His purpose that these differences be erased forever, and they are erased through the work of Christ in reconciliation.

It was this lesson that was so difficult for the early church to understand. For centuries, the Jews had been different from the Gentiles—in religion, dress, diet, and laws. Until Peter was sent to the Gentiles (Acts 10), the church had no problems.

But with the salvation of the Gentiles on the same terms as the Jews, problems began to develop. The Jewish Christians reprimanded Peter for going to the Gentiles and eating with them (Acts 11), and representatives of the churches gathered for an important conference on the place of the Gentiles in the church (Acts 15). Must a Gentile become a Jew to become a Christian?

Their conclusion was, “No! Jews and Gentiles are saved the same way—by faith in Jesus Christ.” The enmity was gone!

The cause of that enmity was the Law, because the Law made a definite distinction between Jews and Gentiles.

The dietary laws reminded the Jews that God had put a difference between the clean and unclean (Lev. 11:44-47).

But the Gentiles did not obey these laws; therefore they were unclean.

The divine ordinances given by God to Israel stood as a wall between the Jews and the other nations. In fact, there was a wall in the Jewish temple, separating the court of the Gentiles from the rest of the temple areas.

This “dividing wall” alludes to the wall in the Jewish temple that separated the court of the Gentiles from the temple proper, which only Jews could enter. The Jewish historian Josephus wrote that on this wall was an inscription in Greek and Latin: “No foreigner may enter within the barricade that surrounds the sanctuary and enclosure. Anyone who is caught doing so will have himself to blame for his ensuing death” (see Acts 21:28–29).

In order for Jews and Gentiles to be reconciled, this wall had to be destroyed, and this Jesus did on the cross. The cost of destroying the enmity was the blood of Christ.

When He died, the veil in the temple was literally torn in two, and the wall of separation (figuratively) was torn down.

By fulfilling the demands of the Law in His righteous life, and by bearing the curse of the Law in His sacrificial death (Gal. 3:10-13),

Jesus removed the legal barrier that separated Jew from Gentile. For centuries, there was a difference between them. But today, “there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek. For the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:12-13).

In Jesus Christ, Jew and Gentile become one. “He is our peace” (Eph. 2:14). Through Christ, the far-off Gentile is made nigh (Eph. 2:13, 17), and both Jew and Gentile are made one.

The word abolish simply means “to nullify.” The Law no longer holds sway over either Jew or Gentile, since in Christ believers are not under Law but under grace.

Christ “is our peace” (Eph. 2:14) and He made “peace” (Eph. 2:15). That verb to make in Ephesians 2:15 means “to create.” The church, the body of Christ, is God’s new creation (2 Cor. 5:15).

 “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28).

The enmity between sinners and God (vv. 16-18).

Not only did the Gentiles need to be reconciled to the Jews, but both the Jews and the Gentiles needed to be reconciled to

Jesus Christ “is our peace” (Eph. 2:14). He “made peace” (Eph. 2:15), and He “preached peace” (Eph. 2:17).

Unification: What Jews And Gentiles Are In Christ (Eph. 2:19-22)

Because Christ broke down the dividing wall, believing Jews and Gentiles can have unity with one another in Christ. Because of Christ’s death, believers are one (2:14); we are reconciled to one another (2:16); we have access to the Father by the Holy Spirit (2:18); we are no longer foreigners or aliens to God (2:19); we are all being built into a holy temple with Christ as our chief cornerstone (2:20–21).

PEACEMAKERS: Christ brought the gospel to all races of people. Christianity is open to all, regardless of race, ethnic background, and economic status, so it shouldn’t surprise us if there are some adjustment problems in making all these different kinds of people into one body.

After all, Jews and Gentiles had spent centuries developing a deep animosity toward one another. It could hardly be expected to evaporate at once. In fact, you wouldn’t expect it to disappear at all—unless something other than human nature was at work. Something was, and is: the peace of God, which is far beyond human comprehension.

The Gentiles are no longer foreigners and aliens. These words describe people who live in a country other than their own without any of the rights of citizenship in that country. The Gentiles were “outsiders” in relation to the Jews, as well as to any hope (without Christ) for a relationship with God (2:12).

That was their old position. Because of Christ, however, the Gentiles became fellow citizens with all who have been called to be God’s people. Jews and Gentiles who put their faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior become members of God’s household, that is, God’s family. (See Philippians 3:20; Hebrews 3:2–6)

All believers are citizens of God’s kingdom and members of his household. Many barriers divide us from other Christians: age, appearance, intelligence, political persuasion, economic status, race, theological perspective.

One of the surest ways to stifle Christ’s love is to be friendly only with those people who are similar to us.

Fortunately, Christ has knocked down the barriers and has placed all believers into one family. His cross should be the focus of our unity. The Holy Spirit helps us look beyond the barriers to the unity we are called to enjoy. People can see that God is love and that Christ is Lord as we live in harmony with each other and in accordance with what God says in his Word.^[1]

The foundation for this church was laid by the Apostles and New Testament prophets. Jesus Christ is the Foundation (1 Cor. 3:11) and the Chief Cornerstone (Ps. 118:22; Isa. 8:14).

This leads to two practical applications as we close this study.

First, have you personally experienced the grace of God? Are you spiritually dead? Are you distant from God? Or have you trusted Christ and been immersed in water in order to have sins forgiven and received that eternal life that only He can give?

Second, if you are a believer in Christ, are you helping others to trust Him? Do you share this Good News of eternal life with others?

^[1] Bruce B. Barton and Philip Wesley Comfort, Ephesians, Life Application Bible Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1996), 55–56.

Henry Ford dreamed of making the automobile available to the average working family. He wanted it to be more than a rich man’s toy. To accomplish this, he employed the strategy of mass production. He implemented assembly-line construction to bring down the cost of manufacturing and keep selling prices reasonable. His strategy revolutionized car manufacturing.

We all use strategies to reach various goals, whether we are seeking a promotion at work, striving for an “A” in a particular class, or purchasing a house. Some of the strategies that we develop work. Some fail.

The Bible is a strategy book. It presents various plans which people can use to face life. It shows us what works and what does not work.

The Bible presents strategies various people have tried in dealing with family, marriage, work, and friendship. Primarily, it presents strategies that have to do with building a relationship with God, obeying God, and serving God.

One principle of strategy that remains consistent in the Scriptures is this: God’s people trust His power, not their own, to accomplish His work.

HIS POWER ILLUSTRATED

The Old Testament provides us with facts to bolster our faith (Romans 15:4). This is especially true when we begin to study the marvelous ability of God. The pages of the Old Testament catalogue case after case where God’s ability abundantly exceeded the needs of His people. Look at some cases, and let them speak about the exceeding abundant ability of God.

The Crossing of the Red Sea and the Jordan

The Israelites crossing the Red Sea and the Jordan River are two events that radical critics have tried to discredit for centuries. But they stand as historically true. In Exodus 14:21, 22, 29, we read that Israel was trapped. She saw no possible escape.

As several have observed, the nation was “between the devil and the deep blue sea.” Pharoah and his army were on the horizon. The vast Red Sea spanned before them. What could they do? The situation was hopeless. Many Israelites voted to give up, return to slavery, and cast themselves upon the mercy of Pharaoh. Some wanted Moses’ head on a platter, blaming him for the predicament they faced. Then, beyond anything Israel could have asked for or thought, God made the Red Sea part and stand like a wall. Israel walked through the crystal hallway to safety.

But pay close attention to Exodus 14:22. Had I been in the Israelite camp, I would have gladly waded knee-deep mud to escape the Egyptians. Mud would have been better than their wrath. But notice, God even dried the mud on the sea’s floor! Israel did not ask for the mud to be dried; she did not even consider it. But God’s ability provided it! This puts new light on Ephesians 3:20.

A similar situation occurred as Israel arrived to ford the Jordan River (Joshua 3) to enter into Canaan. After wandering in the wilderness for forty years, they had come to claim the promise made to Abraham years before. But the river was flooded, and only a fool would venture to cross the angry surges. What could they do?

The promised land was within sight, but they were without resources (or so they assumed). As the morning dawned, the call went out for Israel to form her marching stations. Imagine the perplexity of those people. Where were they going? Then an unthinkable command went forth to the priests carrying the ark: They were to take the ark and lead Israel into the raging flood!

As they did, the unbelievable happened: “And when those who carried the ark came into the Jordan, and the feet of the priests carrying the ark were dipped in the edge of the water…the waters which were flowing down from above stood and rose up in one heap, . . .” (Joshua 3:15, 16). The exceeding, abundant ability of God was evident! Verse 17 says, “The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan…Again God dried even the muddy bottom!

Possessing Jericho. After Israel had recovered from the Jordan crossing, she was confronted with another “impossibility.” Anyone entering Canaan had to pass by Jericho. Because of this, the city was a mighty fortress. Any invading army would lose spirit in thinking about capturing the walled city. As Joshua thought about the invasion, perhaps he would have settled for a hole in the wall through which some men could steal and open the gate for the rest. That was only a dream, for God offered Joshua’s troops something greater than a hole in the wall. He told Joshua that the entire wall, would fall down!

In fact, God told Joshua that Jericho was already his possession (Joshua 6:2). The battle plan was incredible. The wall would fall after they had marched around the city for seven days and blown the trumpets (Joshua 6:4, 5). Israel followed the plan exactly, and the walls fell just as God had promised!

God’s plan was beyond Israel’s expectation. It was according to His exceeding abundant ability.

The Mt. Carmel Confrontation. Much later in Old Testament history, the great prophet Elijah is now God’s spokesman. The scene takes us to the great confrontation between God and Baal. The sacrifices had been prepared by Elijah and the prophets of Baal. Baal’s prophets put on a show that day that emphasiz ed the utter impot ence of  idolatry (I Kings 18:26ff.). Their failure was evident.

With water dripping off the sacrifice and a moat around the repaired altar, Elijah seemed doomed to failure too. Have you ever wondered why Elijah made his part of the contest so difficult? He did not have to; he could have stuck to his original contract.

I like to think it was because of his faith in God’s ability. He knew that if God could start a fire with dry wood, He could start a fire with wet wood. And he was right! God’s ability was magnified that day as He burned wet wood, the ox, the stones of the altar, the water, and even the dirt (I Kings 18:38). When we focus on God’s exceeding abundant ability, great things happen!

We could have never fashioned such a wonderful offer of eternal life. We could have never conceived the blessings of full forgiveness. Only Almighty God could extend the hope of forgive- ness and reconciliation to struggling man.

HIS POWER APPLIED

The greatest encouragement is gained by remembering the confidence of all who trusted God’s ability. A woman once gave a prophet a little cake; it was the very last food she had in a time of famine. In return, though, she received ample food until the famine passed (I Kings 17:8-16). A widow put in two mites as an offering to God and won immortal fame (Luke 21:1-4). Emulate these saints who placed confidence in God’s ability as you nurture a similar trust in your life.

Do you believe anything is too hard for God? His ability extends to all a promise of hope and strength (Psalms 81:10). He is able to supply the answers for all our needs.

God has not changed. He still desires for His people to put their trust in His power.

That is precisely the lesson of our text. It addresses the basic strategy of operation for a church. Will we carry on the Lord’s work by our own power, or will we operate by the power of God?

Paul wrote, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far 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. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all (1:18–23).

Beginning with verse 18, Paul prayed that the ekklesia (church) in Ephesus would come to perceive three invisible realities: (1) the unique hope which  was  theirs,  (2)  the  inheritance  of  God which they had been given, and (3) the power of God by which they should operate.

Paul used several words for “power” to ephasize that in Christ we encounter the highest possible  power.  God  desires  for  every  local church to operate by His incomparably great power.

Local churches can utilize programs. We can use modern methods to instruct, organize, and deal with life’s situations.

We can help people to learn how to be better parents, how to enrich their marriages, how to have better self-esteem, how to study the Bible, how to teach, and how to do many of the activities that we associate with the programs and services of local congregations.

We can do all this and still miss out on the most basic strategy of all for God’s people—to operate by the power of God. He tries to help us to see this need in the words of our text.

GOD BUILDS OUR TRUST IN HIS POWER

Paul prayed for the ekklesia in Ephesus to know God’s power, to participate in it, and to operate by it.

The apostle mentioned three outstanding demonstrations of God’s power that encourage us to do whatever it takes to benefit from that power:

The resurrection of Christ from the dead (1:20). The cross presents us with the greatest display of God’s love; Christ’s resurrection provides us with the ultimate display of His power. The words of a song remind us of this display of divine power:

Not a word was heard at the tomb that day, Just the shuffling soldiers’ feet as they guarded the grave.

One day, two days, three days passed,  Could it be that Jesus had breathed His last?

Could it be that His Father had forsaken Him, Turned his back on His son, despising our sin, All hell seemed to whisper, “Just forget Him, He’s dead.” Then the Father looked down on His Son and said,  “Arise, My love! Arise, My love! The grave no longer has a hold on You. No more death’s sting, no more suffering. Arise, arise, My love.”

Jesus did arise. Imagine the power that penetrated the tomb and exploded in an outburst of eternal life. Only God has that kind of power. How foolish we would be to think that we could get along without it!

The exaltation of Christ. God demonstrated His power not only in the resurrection, but again in the exaltation of Jesus. He “seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far 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” (1:20, 21).

He is Lord. He does have the name above all names. No conceivable power— angelic, demonic, or human—can compare to the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. His power calls us to get serious about trusting in it. When His people walk in His power, it honors the One who sits on the throne.

The supremacy of Jesus on behalf of the church. Verse 22 says, “And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church.”

God’s power has made Jesus the sovereign Lord of both the material realm and the spiritual realm. Jesus said, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18).

He is Lord over all. God has not only made Jesus Lord of Lords, but He has made Him “head over all things to the church.” In other words, God the Father has given the Lord of all glory to the church!  Jesus  rules  for  the  benefit  of  the church. He sits on the throne to see that the church becomes all that God desires it to be. Here is another reason for congregations to move in the direction of greater trust in God’s power— because the Lord Jesus Himself has been given to the church.

God builds our trust in His power through the resurrection, the exaltation, and the supremacy of Jesus.

GOD INVITES OUR PARTICIPATION IN HIS POWER One of the basic strategies coming out of the Bible is this: God desires that His people trust in His power, not their own. Applied to local churches, God wants us to operate by His power and invites our participation in His power.

A local church needs to be a visible expression of His power, a visible expression of His presence, and a visible expression of the Lord Jesus. A congregation should offer people a place where they can encounter and experience the kingdom of God.

Notice what Paul said concerning the church in 1:22, 23: Christ is the “head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all.” These verses include two truths about the church.

1. 1. We are “His body.” A vital union exists between Jesus and the local church. Think of the human body. It has many parts—hands, ears, feet, lungs, arms, arteries, etc. Each part is important. When each part functions, the body is healthy. As the head, heart, arms, and internal organs function, life is

That is Jesus’ plan for the church. Do not miss this truth: A church operates by God’s power when it functions as a body instead of an organization. Notice the contrast between the church as a body and the church as an organization, as shown in the chart below.

A great difference exists between the church as an or ganization and the church as the body of Christ. Many failures and problems that plague local churches today result from the fact that we are functioning more like organizations than bodies.

2. 2. We are “the fulness of Him who fills all in ” In other words, Jesus fills His church. As the body of Christ functions, it becomes the full expression of Jesus Christ. When that happens, as it did in the first century, the world takes notice. All of a sudden, the church stands out. People find in the church what they find nowhere else in this world—the Living Lord, ex- pressed powerfully through people.

It is said that the best commentary on the Bible is the Bible itself. Notice how 4:7–16 sheds light on what our strategy as a church should be—the strategy to operate by the power of God: But to each one of us grace [God’s power] was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says, “When He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives, and He gave gifts to men.” . . . And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangel- ists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

Let us apply these truths in three direct ways to local churches:

(1) To please and honor God, a congregation must operate by His power. God has always insisted that His people operate by His power, not their own.

(2) To operate by His power, a church must function as a body. This calls for emphasizing gatherings where Christians practice the “one-another” commands.

(3) To function as a body, a church must give its highest priority to body life. The ekklesia is God’s new social order— a whole new way of life. It is body life, which operates by God’s power through Jesus.

CONCLUSION. After studying these illustrations, we are impressed with the marvelous power of our great God. May we join with the three Hebrew children who faced the blazing furnace with the confident boast, “Our God is able!” (Daniel 3:17; cf. Job 9:4-7, 10).

In Itasca, Texas, just before World War II, a school fire took the lives of more than two hundred children. After the war, the town rebuilt the school and installed what they said was “the finest sprinkler system in the world.”

The whole town was reassured by this precaution. They conducted tours of the facility and showed people the advanced sprinkler technology. As the town grew, it became necessary to add a new wing to the school. When they did, they made a shocking discovery. Seven years had passed since the school’s opening and the installation of the sprinkler system. When the builders added the wing, they discovered that the sprinkler system had never been connected.

That can happen with a congregation. While God offers incredible power to local churches, some are not  connected. They are doing their best to maintain what they have and not lose ground, but they are not functioning as bodies. They are not working together God’s way or operating by God’s power.

What can you do if you are in a congregation like that? Pray, and then pray some more that God will lead the congregation to function more like a body. Go to the leaders of the congregation and let them know that you want to see the church become more like a body. Let them know that you are ready to be a part of it. Then keep praying, and watch what God does.

THE CHURCH AS A BODY                                               THE CHURCH AS AN ORGANIZATION

Gatherings are informal and personal.                                Gatherings are formal and impersonal.

Leaders equip people for service.                                        Leaders direct programs rather than guiding souls.

Members minister to one another.                                       Members simply sign up for programs.

The goal is growth in grace and knowledge of God.         The goal is growth in numbers only.

Daily interaction naturally occurs.                                      Attendance at appointed times is the main expectation.

All members learn to minister to others.                            An overworked minority keep programs going.

Members are a visible expression of Jesus.                        Mere tasks and assignments are completed.

All members are in close fellowship.                                  Many fail to connect and eventually drift away.

1Eddie Carswell, “Arise, My Love,” Glory: Hallal Music, The Singer’s Worship Series (West Monroe, La.: Howard Publishing Co., 1992), 15. Used with permission. © 1987 Mike Clark Music and Lowry Music Co., Inc.

A.W. Tozer begins his classic, The Knowledge of the Holy with this provocative sentence: “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”

He goes on to argue “We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.”

His words, of course, reflect the psalmist’s comment concerning those who worship idols (Psalm 115:8), “Those who make them will become like them, everyone who trusts in them.”

If Tozer was right, then Martyn Lloyd-Jones was also right when he said, “Our supreme need is to know God.”

He meant, of course, to know God well, to know Him deeply, to know Him truly, as He is revealed in His Word.

The atheist claims there is no God for us to know, and the agnostic states that if there is a God we cannot know Him.

But Paul met God in the person of Jesus Christ, and he knows that a man really cannot understand much of anything else without a knowledge of God.

This willful ignorance of God led mankind into corruption and condemnation. In Romans 1:18ff, Paul describes the stages in man’s devolution: from willful ignorance of God to idolatry (substituting a lie for the truth) to immorality and indecency.

Where does it begin? It begins with an unwillingness to know God as Creator, Sustainer, Governor, Savior, and Judge.

The believer must grow in his knowledge of God.

• To know God personally is salvation (John 17:3).
• To know Him increasingly is sanctification (Phil. 3:10).
• To know Him perfectly is glorification (1 Cor. 13:9-12).

Since we are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-28), the better we know God, the better we know ourselves and each other.

It is not enough to know God only as Savior. We must get to know Him as Father, Friend, Guide, and the better we know Him, the more satisfying our spiritual lives will be.

There is a legitimate sense in which every believer has come to know God.

Jesus prayed (John 17:3), “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

After 25 years as a believer, the apostle Paul said that he had not yet attained to knowing Christ as he ought, but he pressed on toward that goal (Phil. 3:8-14). And if that was true of Paul, who wasn’t exactly an average believer, how much more is it true of us!

As the prophet Hosea wrote (6:3), “let us press on to know the Lord.”

That his readers would know God more deeply is the main theme of Paul’s prayer (Eph. 1:15-23). He has just unfolded in one long sentence (1:3-14 in the Greek) that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

These blessings include being chosen by the Father (1:4-6); redeemed by the Son, who has also revealed to us God’s eternal purpose (1:7-12); and, sealed by the Holy Spirit (1:13-14).

Paul’s prayer shows us that we should pray often for one another and what we should pray when we do pray.

We should also apply Paul’s prayer to ourselves. We often pray, “Lord, heal me of this illness. Give me this job. Help me to do well in school.”

While there is nothing wrong with such prayers, they are rather shallow. We also ought to be praying, “Lord, give me a spirit of wisdom and revelation in knowing You. Grant the same for my mate and my children, and for all of the saints in our church.”

No truer statement was ever uttered than Paul’s when he said, “We don’t know what to pray for as we ought” (Romans 8:26). I am afraid that far too much of our praying is superficial and selfish.

PRAYER POWER.

Many churches—and many Christians—act as though truth were the only emphasis that matters. Just give us good preaching and sound doctrine, and everything else will fall in line. Solid preaching and doctrine are important; in fact, they are essential. But so is prayer. A church or individual Christian who gets a steady input of truth but little or no prayer is like a beautiful sports car without oil in the engine. It may look and sound great for a while, but sooner or later it will break down. Prayer is the oil that keeps us running. When we pray for others, we ask the Holy Spirit to strengthen them. That’s why it’s so important that we pray for one another as Ephesians 1:15-16 teaches. Prayer also unleashes his power in us—power to guide, convict, encourage, heal. If the church depended on your prayers, how long and how well would the church keep running? When you say to someone, “I’ll keep you in prayer,” be sure you do it.

Burton Coffman observed: “According to the Scriptures, it is ‘the heart’ that imagines (Genesis 6:5), understands (Matthew 15:13), reasons (Mark 2:8), thinks (Luke 9:47), believes (Romans 10:9), and loves (1 Peter 1:22).

These passages are more than enough to identify the Scriptural ‘heart’ as the mind or seat of the intelligence” (emphasis added).

Here, the “eyes of [the] heart” constitute our intellect and mental, spiritual recognition of other-worldly truths.

The biblical heart is clearly a vital aspect of our intellect, recognition of spirit truths, and the faithful humility we exercise in Christ.

Christians differ from non-Christians in the way they see life. In fact, our enlightened eyes perceive life in a way the world cannot imagine. What can the ekklesia see that the world cannot see?

Can a person who is not a Christian know God as a Christian knows God? The Bible tells us about the limited knowledge of those who do not belong to Christ.

They are “darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart” (4:18).

Non-Christians can no more come to see and know God as Christians do than a bat could see the room you are sitting in right now as you see it.

Life outside the ekklesia is perceived one way. Life inside the ekklesia is perceived another way.

Paul prayed for God to give Christians something very special: “a spirit of wisdom and of revelation” (1:17b).

He wanted them to have a “Christians-only” kind of insight into what God has done in Christ, as well as the impact Christ has on those who belong to Him.

What God Wants You to Know (Ephesians 1:18-19). When you buy a new gadget, it comes with an owner’s manual that tells you how to operate it.

Many of us skim the manual quickly (at best), or never bother to read it at all. That’s too tedious, and besides, we think that we’re smart enough to figure this out without reading the directions.

But then we can’t figure out why this ‘poorly made’ product doesn’t work right! Maybe we need to go back and read the manual!

God has given us His Word as the manual for our salvation. It tells us all we need to know to walk with God and live wisely in light of eternity.

But, as we do with so many owner’s manuals, we read it superficially or hardly at all and then wonder why the Christian life isn’t working the way it’s supposed to!

We need to go back and read the manual carefully, asking God to give us His wisdom and understanding.

God wants you to know the hope of His calling, the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and the surpassing greatness of His power toward believers.

To know these important truths, you must ask God to enlighten the eyes of your heart.

Sin blinds the minds of unbelievers and renders them incapable of understanding the truth of the gospel, unless God opens their blind eyes (2 Cor. 4:4, 6).

But here, Paul is writing to believers (“saints,” “us who believe,” 1:18, 19). Even though God has opened our eyes to see and believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, we still must seek Him to enlighten the eyes of our hearts so that we will come to a deeper understanding of these crucial truths.

Here is how this applies: As a believer, you are always in need of the Holy Spirit to enlighten the eyes of your heart to the great truths of the Bible.

Many Christians have a “stick your head in the sand” attitude when it comes to grappling with the difficult doctrines of the Bible. They say, “I don’t bother with theology. I just love Jesus.”

Some even think that studying theology is spiritually dangerous. But they are being intellectually lazy and exposing themselves to spiritual danger!

Certainly, there is always the danger of spiritual pride that comes from thinking that you know more than others know.

There is the danger of stopping at knowing doctrine, rather than allowing the doctrines to give you greater personal knowledge of the God of whom the doctrines speak.

But the antidote to these dangers is not to remain ignorant. Rather, it is constantly to be praying as you study the Word, “Lord, enlighten the eyes of my heart so that I may know, love, and obey You better!”

God wants you to know what is the hope of His calling.

The hope of His calling reminds us that He took the initiative in our salvation.

Paul writes (Rom. 8:30), “And these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”

The practical application of this is that your salvation does not rest on your choosing Christ, but rather on His choosing you.

Paul puts it (2 Tim. 1:9), God “has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.”

As Christians, we should be filled with hope because we know that God has called us to salvation.

God wants you to know what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.

It would have been a tall prayer if Paul had prayed that we would know God’s inheritance in the saints. It grows even taller when he prays that we would know the glory of God’s inheritance in the saints.

But it is mind-boggling when he prays that we will know “the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints”!

In Ephesians 1-3, Paul is emphasizing that although the Gentiles were formerly alienated from God and strangers to His promises to Israel, now in Christ they are equal members of God’s covenant people.

Just as the Jews were formerly God’s chosen inheritance, now His inheritance is in the saints, the church, made up of Jewish and Gentile believers on equal footing.

Our future is that throughout eternity we will actually share in Christ’s glory!

God wants you to know what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.

Again, Paul piles up words to describe God’s power. It would seemingly be enough to mention the power of God, who is omnipotent.

But, Paul adds, “the surpassing greatness of His power,” and then goes on to say (1:19b-21) that this power is “in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.”

There are at least six ways that God wants us as believers to know the surpassing greatness of His power toward us:

1. God wants us to know the surpassing greatness of His power that saved us.

2. God wants us to know the surpassing greatness of His power that enables us to persevere through trials.

3. God wants us to know the surpassing greatness of His power to overcome temptation and live in holiness.

4. God wants us to know the surpassing greatness of His power to serve Him faithfully.

5. God wants us to know the surpassing greatness of His power for everything that He has called us to do.

6. God wants us to know the surpassing greatness of His power to keep us to the end.

Michael W. Smith’s song: Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Open the eyes of my heart, I want to see You, I want to see You. Open the eyes of my heart, Lord, Open the eyes of my heart, I want to see You, I want to see You.

[Chorus] To see You high and lifted up…shinin’ in the light of Your glory. Pour out Your power and love, As we sing holy, holy, holy…

It is easy in spiritual matters for us to allow the mechanics of how God does a thing to so bog us down that we lose sight of the blessings.

We become so concerned about how God answers prayer that we forget He does.

We worry so much about how God makes all things work together for good that we begin to doubt that He does (see Romans 8:28).

We have made this mistake on what the Spirit does for a Christian. Our great question for years has been how the Spirit operates in a Christian, not what He does.

We have become so bogged down on the matter that if someone says he is led by the Spirit we think he is becoming a fanatic (cf. Romans 8:14). At the same time we can say we are providentially led and no one becomes concerned. Yet the words “providentially led” are not in the Bible.

In this lesson I want to open-mindedly study what the Bible says about the Spirit’s work.

1. Let’s believe what the Bible says.
2. The Bible teaches that miracles have ceased.
3. Thus, the Spirit’s work is not miraculous.
4. But what does He do?

HE SEATS US AND PROMISES MORE TO COME.

“If any man hath not the spirit of Christ he is none of His” (Romans 8:9).

Thus, believing the Spirit assures ownership. His presence in our lives identifies us as Christ’s.

He is the “earnest of our inheritance.”

God has promised us mansions in heaven (John 14:1-3). How do I know His promise is for real? We have the earnest present!

HE STRENGTHENS US IN THE INNER MAN (3:14-21).

This passage says we have something to pray about. This is associated with God’s rich grace. This is something we need (6:10; 2 Timothy 1:7).

The real strength is always on the inside. God is able to so bless.

HE GIVES LIFE TO OUR MORTAL BODIES (Romans 8:11).

This passage probably refers to the resurrection from the dead. It is possible, though, that it has to do with our mortifying the deeds of the body or works of the flesh (Romans 8:12, 13).

It is often difficult to rid myself of sins of the flesh, but the Spirit helps.

HE BEARS WITNESS THAT WE ARE CHILDREN OF GOD (ROMANS 8:14-17).

We were slaves of sin. Now we have received the spirit of adoption, so we can cry, “Abba, Father.”

We are children now, sons of God. As such we are heirs of God and joint heirs of Christ.

The result is to be glory (Romans 8:17, 18).

HE HELPS OUR INFIRMITIES (Romans 8:26).

One way the Spirit does this is by making intercession for us. B. But that is just one illustration of His help. He is always concerned to help us overcome.

CONCLUSION

Do you have the Holy Spirit working for you? You can have. All who obey the Lord through immersion in water in order to have sins forgiven receive the gift of the Spirit (Acts 2:38).

 

^9”.. making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ ¹⁰ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

 New International Version he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ,

New Living Translation

God has now revealed to us his mysterious will regarding Christ—which is to fulfill his own good plan.

English Standard Version

making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ

NASB 1995 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him

Having made known to us the mystery of His will: Part of what belongs to us under the riches of His grace is the knowledge of the mystery of His will, God’s great plan and purpose which was once hidden but is now revealed to us in Jesus. Through the Apostle Paul, God called us to consider the greatness of God’s great plan for the ages and our place in that plan.

“In the New Testament sense a mystery is something which is hidden to the heathen but clear to the Christian.” (Barclay)

The idea behind the word dispensation also reflects a plan or a strategy. “The plan which the master of a family, or his steward, has established for the management of the family… it signifies, also, a plan for the management of any sort of business.” (Clarke)

That… He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth; in Him: God’s ultimate plan is to bring together — to ultimately resolve — all things in Christ, either through Jesus as a Savior or Jesus as a Judge; this will happen in the fullness of the times.

The word for gather together has the idea of “to unite” or “to sum up.” It was used for the process of adding up a column of figures and putting the sum up at the top. Paul’s idea is that God will make all things “add up” at the end, and right now He is in the process of coming to that final sum.

This shows that God wants to unify all things in our lives under Him. “It is a heresy of our times to divide life into sacred and secular.” (Foulkes)

This is the great resolution and deliverance that even the creation groans for (Romans 8:18-22), the day when every wrong will be righted and every matter resolved according to God’s holy love and justice.

Bruce on the fullness of the times: “When the time is ripe for the consummation of his purpose, in his providential overruling of the course of the world, that consummation will be realized.”

In Him also we have obtained an inheritance: For believers, Jesus is not a judge, but the One in whom we have an inheritance. Believers are predestined for this according to the counsel of His will — again, the reasons for His choosing reside in Him, not in us.

Being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will: We see three aspects of God’s plan working together. It begins with His purpose, then the counsel of His will, and finally results in His work. God made His plan carefully according to an eternal purpose, taking counsel within the Godhead, and then He works with all wisdom.

“Our God is a God who not only wills; He works; and He works according to His will… The word counsel stands for deliberate planning and arranging, in which the ways and means of carrying out the will are considered and provided for.” (Morgan)

By the counsel of His will: “God doth all by counsel, and ever hath a reason of his will, which though we see not for present, we shall at last day. Meanwhile submit.” (Trapp)

That we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory: God’s purpose in all this is so that those who have trusted Christ will exist to the praise of His glory. The goal of God’s ultimate plan is to glorify Him.

We who first trusted in Christ: This speaks of Jewish believers. The words you also in Ephesians 1:13 speak of Gentile believers. God’s great plan has a place for both Jew and Gentile, and it brings them both together in Jesus.

Having made known unto us the mystery of his will.–In the same connection we read in 1Corinthians 2:7, “we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery.” The word “mystery” properly signifies a thing which (see Ephesians 3:5; Colossians 1:27) “was hid from all ages, but is now made manifest.” So our Lord evidently uses it (in Matthew 13:11; Mark 4:11; Luke 8:10). For the rest, except in four passages of the Apocalypse (Revelation 1:20; Revelation 10:7; Revelation 17:5; Revelation 17:7), it is used by St. Paul alone, and by him no less than twenty-one times, of which ten belong to this Epistle and the parallel Epistle to the Colossians–always in connection with such words as “knowledge,” “declaration,” “dispensation.” The ordinary sense of the word “mystery”–a thing of which we know that it is, though how it is we know not–is not implied in the original meaning of the word; but it is a natural derivative from it. Reason can apprehend, when revealed, that which it cannot discover; but seldom or never can it comprehend it perfectly. In this verse the mystery is declared to be accordant to the good pleasure of God’s will, which (it is added) “He purposed in Himself.” In this seems to be implied that (see Ephesians 3:19) though in some sense we can know it, yet in its fulness “it passeth knowledge.” . . .

The word mystery (μυστήριον) appears prominently throughout Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, occurring six times in total, more than in any other New Testament (NT) book.

Meaning

The origin of μυστήριον is obscure.[3] By Paul’s time, it meant “a secret.”[4] Mounce says it was “a matter to the knowledge of which initiation is necessary; a secret which would remain such but for revelation.”[5] The word differs from the modern word mystery, which refers to a known but difficult problem that people try solve. The NT word refers to material wholly unknown unless God reveals it. Ryrie explains this as special, divine knowledge beyond the reach of humans.[6] Remarkably, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, through the following six references, reveals such knowledge which would have remained unknown otherwise.

Ephesians 1:9

Knowledge of this mystery is a result of God’s grace to believers revealed to the church. It divulges a crucial aspect of God’s will, that he would form a new, comprehensive union from all kinds of people, Gentile or Jew (cf. 2:15-16).[7] This union would occur through the redemptive work of Christ and encompass the spiritual world.[8] Though the Old Testament (OT) revealed that Gentiles would share in God’s redemption (Gen 12:3; Isa 42:6-7), it did not reveal that Jews and Gentiles would form a new spiritual entity.[9]

Ephesians 3:3-4

God revealed this mystery to Paul and to other apostles and prophets as well (Eph 3:5), who would reveal it to the church (3:3). Thielman observes, “No amount of exegetical study of the Scriptures would have yielded this insight; God had to make it known to Paul personally.”[10] This mystery centered on Christ as the agent who would unite believing Gentiles and Jews through the gospel. As such, believers can abandon all “inferior and pseudo-mysteries – the rituals of the gods and goddesses they may have worshiped all their lives – and give their allegiance to Christ alone.”[11] This mission of Christ would was not revealed to previous generations, but God revealed to the church for the very first time.

Ephesians 3:9

Paul was charged with enlightening everyone possible, “all” (πάντας), about this new revelation. He had a crucial administrative role (οἰκονομία) in propagating this message of the “ethnically inclusive nature” of God’s new spiritual creation, which is the church. Hoehner says, “Paul’s mission [had] no place for secrecy; it [was] to be openly shared.”^[12] In doing so, he shared something that had been hidden from previous generations entirely.

Ephesians 5:32

Paul reveals a profound (“great”) correlation between the intimate union of a husband and wife and the union of Christ with the church (cf. Gen 2:24).[13] Apart from Paul making this connection, we would never have considered it.[14] In fact, he “goes beyond analogy” by claiming “we are (ἐσμέν) members of [Christ’s] body (Eph 5:30).”[15] This underscores the profound spiritual closeness and union we share with Christ and one another in the church.

Ephesians 6:19

Despite Paul’s privileged role in publicizing the mystery, he had been imprisoned for his gospel activity. Therefore, he requested prayer from the Ephesian believers that he would discharge his mission with clarity and confidence. This request pertained not to the gospel in general, but to the “mystery,” which was a key component and result of the gospel.[16] Though this message enabled true social reconciliation, it was not always well received.

Conclusion

The word mystery in Ephesians highlights a special message revealed to Christians through Paul and the apostles, who received it as revelation from God. This insight into God’s eternal redemptive plan had never been disclosed before. It revealed that God, through Christ, would join believing Jews and Gentiles into a new spiritual entity called the church. This union together with Christ would be profoundly intimate and widely publicized. In response to this reality, believers should “submit to one another” (5:21) as we learn to submit ourselves to Christ in the church (Eph 5:22-24). This mindset will enable us to manifest our spiritual reconciliation with Christ and one another in a practical, visible way. It will also show all people that the gospel of Christ is the means of genuine ethnic and social reconciliation.

[1] Paul used this word twenty-one times in his NT writings (Rom 11:25; 16:25; 1 Cor 2:7; 4:1; 13:2; 14:2; 15:51; Eph 1:9; 3:3-4,9; 5:32; 6:19, Col 1:26-27; 2:2; 2 Thess 2:7; 1 Tim 3:9; 3:16). It appears even times elsewhere in the NT (Matt 13:11; Mark 4:11; Luke 8:10; Rev 1:20;10:7; 17:5, 7).

[2] “The NT concept of the mystery is most fully developed in Ephesians. While in Paul’s other epistles the mystery focuses on Christ’s redemption that includes Gentiles, in Ephesians the mystery is that believing Jews and Gentiles are now one in the body of Christ.” Hoehner, Harold W. Ephesians, Kindle ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), loc. 8977-8979.0

[3] Arthur G. Patzia, “Mystery,” ed. Ralph P. Martin and Peter H. Davids, Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Developments (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1997), 782.

[4] James Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Greek (New Testament) (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, 1997).

[5] William D. Mounce, Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 1215.

[6] Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Basic Theology (Chicago: Moody, 1999), 463.

[7] Hoehner, Ephesians, loc. 8986-8987.

[8] Peter T. O’Brien, “Mystery,” ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, and Daniel G. Reid, Dictionary of Paul and His Letters(Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1993), 622.

[9] Ryrie, Basic Theology, 463.

[10] Thielman, Frank. Ephesians, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic,2010), 194.

[11] Clinton E. Arnold, Ephesians, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,2010), 188.

[12] Hoehner, loc. 8951-8952.

[13] Arnold, Ephesians, 397.

[14] Hoehner, 8956-8958.

[15] Arnold, 396.

[16] Hoehner, 8952-8954.

God’s Plan for the Ages – Ephesians 1:8b-10

“God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” Most of us recognize that sentence as the familiar Law One of the Four Spiritual Laws. It is true, of course: God does love you and He has a wonderful plan for your life.

Having said that, however, I must add that God’s actual plan for your life and your idea of God’s plan for your life may not be one and the same! Your idea of God’s wonderful plan for your life may be a comfortable home in the suburbs, a good job, a happy, healthy family, and a good church where you have many Christian friends. God’s actual wonderful plan may include financial pressures, a difficult marriage, a debilitating illness, children who rebel, or other unforeseen trials.

Or, God’s actual wonderful plan may be that you move to a difficult part of the world that is entrenched in a non-Christian religion, to take the gospel to these people. You will have to learn a difficult language and adapt to a strange culture. You may have to endure corrupt and ineffective government, daily power outages, undrinkable water, pollution, the lack of modern medical facilities, and opposition from the local people. You will face the difficulty of rearing and educating your children in a non-western culture. And, although you are serving God in a difficult situation, you and your family are not exempt from disease and other trials.

Also, you may be plagued by a lack of adequate support from the comfy Christians back in the homeland, who are enjoying all of the latest gadgets and conveniences that the American dream provides. While they are building equity in their homes and retirement portfolios so that they can cruise America’s National Parks in their RV’s, you will not own a home or have a retirement portfolio of any substance. This may be God’s actual wonderful plan for your life! Although it may not sound inviting, in truth you will enjoy God’s true blessing, because you are living your life in light of His eternal plan for the ages.

The apostle Paul is enumerating some of the spiritual blessings that God has graciously bestowed on us in Jesus Christ. He has mentioned God’s choosing us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him (1:4). He tells us that in love, God predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will (1:5). He says that in Christ, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us (1:7).

Some scholars link the next phrase, “in all wisdom and insight,” with the preceding phrase, meaning that God gave us wisdom and insight to understand our redemption and forgiveness. Or, it may (as in the NASB) point ahead to the next blessing, that God has given us wisdom and insight to understand the mystery of His will, or His plan for the ages. In 1:8b-10, Paul’s message and its application are,

Because God’s plan for the ages is to sum up all things under Christ, we should submit ourselves to Jesus as Lord.

Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life is phenomenally popular, and as long as you understand it properly, from God’s perspective, the message is valid. If you tweak the message into an Americanized version, where you use God to help you reach your goals, you have perverted the biblical message. But, if you understand that God’s purpose is to be glorified through your submitting all of your life to the lordship of Jesus, then the message is valid.

If you want your few years on this earth to count for eternity, you must bring your life under Christ’s lordship and in line with God’s purpose for the ages, which is to bring all things into one harmonious whole under Jesus Christ as Lord. Note four things:

1. God has a plan for the ages.

It is only reasonable that an all-wise, all-knowing, all-powerful God would have a comprehensive plan for the world that He spoke into existence and that He would have the ability to carry out that plan.

A. God has a plan and He has the ability to carry it out.

Many Scriptures affirm this evident truth. For example, Job 42:2 declares, “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.”

Psalm 103:19 rejoices that, “The Lord has established His throne in the heavens, and His sovereignty rules over all.”

Psalm 115:3 states, “But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.”

In Isaiah 46:9-10, God declares, “For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure.”

In Daniel 4:34-35, the humbled Nebuchadnezzar blesses, praises, and honors the Most High, who lives forever, “For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, but He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth; and no one can ward off His hand or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’”

Or, as Paul comprehensively states in Ephesians 1:11, we have “been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.”

Some deny that God is sovereign over all that happens, because they think that it would make Him the author of evil. But, the Bible is clear that God decreed beforehand what will happen in history, including such evil events as the crucifixion of Christ (Acts 2:23; 4:27-28) and the rise of the Antichrist (2 Thess. 2:8-10; Rev. 13). Yet, at the same time, God is not the author of evil or responsible for it (1 John 1:5). God declares (Isa. 45:7) that He is “the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these.” Or, Amos 3:6 asks rhetorically, “If a calamity occurs in a city has not the Lord done it?” God declares to the prophet Habakkuk that He is raising up the evil Chaldeans to discipline His people Israel. In that context, the prophet rightly declares of God (Hab. 1:13), “Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, and You can not look on wickedness with favor.” God is sovereign even over evil, yet He is not the author of evil and is not responsible for it. The Bible is clear that He has a plan and He can and will carry it out.

B. God’s plan is according to His own good pleasure.

Paul states (Eph. 1:9) that God’s will is “according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him.” “Kind intention” is a single Greek word that means “good pleasure” (the same word is in 1:5). Jesus used this word in Luke 10:21, when He said, “I praise You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight.” It refers to the fact that God does what He does simply because it pleases Him to do so. In other words, He does not determine His plan based upon anything outside of Himself. He did not look down through the corridors of time and then make up His plan after He saw who would choose Him. He did not base His choice on any merit or worthiness that He foresaw in us.

John Calvin (Sermons on Ephesians [Banner of Truth, 1973], p. 58) points out that Paul uses this word to “put away and shut out all opinion which men might conceive of their own worthiness.” Then he adds, “For God’s good pleasure can have no place unless men are barred from all deserving and come to him utterly empty.” So, God’s plan to save us (which is Paul’s subject in the context here) is totally because of His grace and good pleasure.

C. God carries out His plan according to His sovereign timetable.

Paul says (1:10) that God’s purpose is “with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times….” “Administration” (New KJV = “dispensation”) here refers to God’s “comprehensive arrangement and administration of [His] plan according to … [His] decree” (John Grassmick, unpublished class notes, Dallas Theological Seminary). “The picture is that of a great household of which God is Master and which has an orderly system of management controlled by Him.” It means that “God orders everything in its full time and in sovereign wisdom orders the time of all things” (ibid.).

Paul uses a similar phrase in Galatians 4:4-5 with reference to the incarnation: “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.” In other words, God brought the Savior into the world in His perfect timetable. He promised to send a Savior to Adam and Eve after they fell into sin (Gen. 3:15). But at least 2,000 years went by before God chose to call Abraham out of Mesopotamia. God promised to give Abraham a son and the land and to bless the nations through His descendant, Jesus Christ.

But, Abraham’s descendants had to spend 400 years in captivity in Egypt, while the world waited for the Savior. Then there was about 1,000 years of Israel’s mostly disobedient history, including the Babylonian captivity. There were 400 more silent years, with no prophetic word from God. Finally, at least 4,000 years after Adam and 2,000 years after Abraham, God sent His Son into this world.

Was God late? Perish the thought! Although we may wonder why God waited so long, while millions of people down through the centuries died in their sins, God sent His Son at precisely the right moment, from His divine plan. He is in charge of the events of history, and no evil tyrant or disobedient nation can thwart God’s plan.

This truth gives us encouragement and hope, especially when we see frightening international events unfolding, such as the threat of militant Islamic terrorists who are determined to destroy our nation. It also applies to our individual history, when tragedies hit or things seem to be spinning out of control. God is still in charge and He does not allow anything to disrupt His sovereign plan.

2. God has graciously given us wisdom and insight to know His plan for the ages.

“All wisdom and insight” (1:8b) refers to the wisdom and insight that God has graciously given to us so that we can know “the mystery of His will.” We need to understand several terms. Wisdom is a general term that refers to understanding the true nature of things, whereas insight refers to practical discernment that results in right action in daily life. In the context here, the idea is that God has given us the wisdom we need to apprehend His gracious eternal plan of salvation and the practical outworking of it in our daily lives. William Barclay put it (cited by Grassmick, ibid.), “Christ gives to men the ability to see the great ultimate truths of eternity and to solve the problems of each moment of time.”

Paul says (1:9) that God “made known to us the mystery of His will….” Mystery does not refer to a closely guarded secret that only those in the secret inner circle understand. (It was used in this way in the “mystery” religions of the first century.) Nor does it refer to something vague, nebulous, and indefinite. Rather, it means something that was previously unknown, but now has been revealed. God has graciously revealed to us what we never could have figured out by ourselves, namely, His sovereign will or plan for the ages, to sum up everything in Christ.

Paul uses this idea of God revealing the mystery of His will, in other places. In Romans 16:25-26, he writes, “Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested ….” Or, in 1 Corinthians 1, Paul contrasts the wisdom of the world, through which they could not come to know God, with the wisdom of God as displayed at the cross. Then, in 2:6-7, he explains, “Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory.” He goes on to explain how God has to reveal this wisdom to us, because the natural man is incapable of understanding it (2:14).

Even though God has given us wisdom and insight into the mystery of His will, such wisdom and insight is not automatic! We have to study the Scriptures diligently, asking God to give us such wisdom and insight, so that we might walk in His ways. As Proverbs (2:2-4) tells us, we must seek for wisdom as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures.

Thus, God has a plan for the ages and He has graciously given us wisdom and insight to know this plan.

3. God’s plan for the ages is to sum up all things under Jesus Christ as Lord.

The Greek verb translated “summing up” means to bring together or to gather up in one. It implies that things were before in disharmony or disarray (because of the fall), but now they will be brought together in unity. Sam Storms explains (http://www.en­joyinggodministries.com/article/17-14), “The idea is that the discordant and disintegrating elements in the creative realm will be renewed and unified under the Lordship of Jesus. Everything will be brought into submission to his will and subservience to his glory.” The Greek scholar, J. B. Lightfoot concludes (Notes on Epistles of St. Paul [Baker, 1980 reprint], ed. by J. R. Harmer, p. 322), “Thus the expression implies the entire harmony of the universe, which shall no longer contain alien and discordant elements, but of which all the parts shall find their centre and bond of union in Christ.”

Paul explains “all things” by adding, “things in the heavens and things on the earth.” This is a figure of speech that expresses comprehensiveness. It includes the restoration of the fallen creation (Rom. 8:18-23); the salvation and perfect sanctification of all of God’s elect (Eph. 1:4); and, eternal rest from conflict for the elect angels (1 Tim. 5:21), whose ministry to us engages them in battle with the forces of Satan (Daniel 10:12-13; Rev. 12:7-9).

God’s summing up all things in Christ (reconciling all things to Himself in Col. 1:20) does not mean, as some erroneously teach, that eventually everyone (including Satan!) will be saved! The Bible is clear that Satan and his evil demonic forces, will be forever subdued and confined to the lake of fire, along with all who die without believing in Christ (Rev. 20:11-15). But, every knee will someday bow before Jesus and acknowledge Him as Lord, either willingly or forcibly (Phil. 2:9-11).

Paul will go on (in Eph. 2 & 3) to emphasize that the church is now the prototype of God’s ultimate plan of reunification. Specifically, the mystery that God has now revealed is that the Jews and the Gentiles (who were about as discordant groups as you could find!) are now fellow members of the one body of Christ (see 3:4-6). Thus in chapter 4, he emphasizes strongly the need for practical, demonstrable love and unity in the church.

But here he is laying the theological foundation for such behavior, namely, that the church is the first glimpse of what God ultimately plans to do. His plan for the ages is to reunite in Christ everything that has been torn apart and alienated through sin. There will be no strife or rivalry or selfishness or jealousy or tyranny of one person over another in the future kingdom of Christ. While we wait for that great day, we must labor to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Eph. 4:3). The bottom line of Paul’s theology here is:

4. When we understand God’s eternal purpose, it will lead us to submit to Jesus Christ as Lord of all.

If all things will be subject one day to Jesus Christ as Lord and if all of His subjects will dwell together in the unhindered harmony of heaven, then it follows that we now should bring every area of our lives and every relationship under His sovereign lordship. God has told us that His plan for the ages is to sum up or reunite all things in one harmonious whole under Jesus Christ. We know that God will do as He purposes to do. It is certain that He will accomplish all His good pleasure (Isa. 46:10). Every knee will bow before Jesus as Lord, either willingly or under force. It is far better to bow willingly now than to bow under force at the judgment, when there will be no chance for repentance!

To submit to Jesus as Lord begins with your thought life. You must be transformed by the renewing of your mind (Rom. 12:1-2). When sinful thoughts pop into your mind, you must turn from them and enthrone Jesus as Lord. As Paul puts it (Rom. 13:13-14), “Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.” Behavior always comes from the heart (Mark 7:21-23), so you must begin there.

Submitting to Jesus as Lord also requires that you bring your priorities and values in line with His Word. He commanded us (Matt. 6:33), “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” In the context, “all these things” refers to the things that unbelievers eagerly seek, especially material things. How we manage the money that the Lord entrusts to us is a litmus test of our faithfulness to the Lord (Luke 16:10-13).

Enthroning Jesus as Lord also means that we bring our schedules under His lordship. We all are given a certain amount of time on this earth. Many hours each day are taken up with necessary activities, such as sleeping, eating, personal grooming, and work. But, how do we spend the other hours? Do we make spending time alone with God a priority? Do we hunger and thirst to know Him? Or, do we fritter it away with useless pastimes?

Living under Christ’s lordship also means that we order our relationships according to His Word. We must learn truly to love others, even as He has loved us. We must speak kindly to one another. We must put away selfishness and strife. As Paul wrote (Col. 3:12-14), “So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.”

Conclusion

The outcome of history is certain and God has revealed it to us in advance. He is going to sum up all things under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Knowing that outcome, you’d be a fool to bet your life on anything else. God wants each of us to submit now to Jesus as Lord and to spend our lives furthering His kingdom purposes. In light of His revealed sovereign purpose, that’s the only wise way to invest your life!

 

The Mystery of Unity

Today, in the first chapter of Ephesians, we will be examining a great question with which men continually wrestle in our day, as they have all through history: The question of whether or not there is a purpose in the universe. Do the events of history make any sense? Is the record of human events — with its concatenation of tragedy and happiness and misery and heartache and joy — to any real effect, is it moving toward any one goal?

Or is life, as Shakespeare once described it, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”? There are many people today who say that is a true description. They agree with Shakespeare. There are many voices saying that there is no purpose for the universe, and they are respected voices. Many historians, scientists, and others, looking at life around us, at the human story, say that no plan is evident, no purpose discernible, through all the strange mixture of history.

I was reading the commentary on the Bible by William Barclay this week. He cites several English voices in this respect: Oscar Wilde, in one of his epigrams, said, “You give the criminal calendar of Europe to your children under the name of history.” That is all he could see in history, a criminal calendar. G. N. Clark, in his inaugural lecture as president of Cambridge University, said, “There is no secret and no plan in history to be discovered. I do not believe that any future consummation could make any sense of all the irrationalities of preceding ages. If it could not explain them, still less could it justify them.”

And in the introduction to his A History of Europe, H. A. L. Fisher writes, “One intellectual excitement has been denied me. Men wiser and more learned than I have discovered in history a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern. But these harmonies are concealed from me. I can see only one emergency following another, as wave follows upon wave, only one great fact with respect to which, since it is unique, there can be no generalization, only one safe rule for the historian — that he should recognize in the development of human destiny the play of the contingent and the unforeseen.” And Andre Maurois said, “The universe is indifferent. Who created it? Why are we here upon this puny mud heap, spinning in infinite space? I have not the slightest idea, and I am quite convinced that no one else has the least idea.”

For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him, according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will, we who first hoped in Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:9-12 RSV)

That is another of the vast and complicated statements in which the apostle crams together truth which relates to one great, central theme — the purpose of God in what is happening today. It is here that we begin to understand the world around us and the course of history as it rolls on. In order to understand it we must take this statement apart. I find four major divisions in it.

There is, first, the secret itself, “the mystery of his will,” the hidden purpose of God. You notice that Paul describes it as a mystery. A mystery, as we have seen in previous messages, is a secret which only God understands, and which men desperately need to know, but about which they can never find out except through the disclosure of God. Mysteries are the answers to the great questions which continually throb in the human heart. But you never can find them by any ordinary human enterprise. No course of instruction, no curriculum of a university, no scientific investigation, will ever reveal these secrets. You cannot find them out in any other way; God must tell us the answers. This is the sort of mystery spoken of here.

You remember that, in First Corinthians 4, Paul reminds us that we Christians have been made stewards of the mysteries of God, dispensers of them. It is up to us to grasp them, understand them, and speak out about them. What is wrong in the world of our day is the fact that the church has not been speaking about the mysteries which belong to it, and, therefore, the world is in confusion and darkness. So it is up to us to tell these forth.

The second division, a very important one, is the way by which the mystery of God’s will was made manifest. Paul brings this out in this passage. The third is the time in which it is to be fully manifested. And the fourth is the part which we will play in accomplishing it — our part in this tremendous procedure. That is our course of study this morning. First let’s look at the great secret which Paul sets before us, found in the latter part of Verse 10:

…to unite all things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth. (Ephesians 1:10b RSV)

That is what God is doing in history. He is working to unite all things in Christ. But that is rather an amazing statement, because, when you look at history, it looks as if exactly the opposite is occurring, as if things are falling apart. Paul has an answer for that — we’ll come to it in just a moment — but first he wants us to understand that this is the direction in which God is moving, this is what he is going to do. He is going to unite all things in him.

When Paul says “all things,” he means all things. In fact, he amplifies it: “things in heaven and things on earth.” That is, things in the invisible realm of reality, heaven, the forces which are at work in our lives right now, but which we can’t see or taste or touch or feel, both evil and good, the evil principalities and powers struggling with the angels and the forces of good, all things in heaven, and all the visible forces on earth, the struggles between nations, the strife among individuals — all these shall cease and be united together, brought to a head, is the idea. The Greek word for unite means “to head up,” i.e., to relate to Christ as a body relates to its head. Then he will be the director, the supreme operator, of all things, both in heaven and on earth.

Remember how Paul puts that in his letter to the Philippians. The process first was one of disglorification. Our Lord emptied himself of the glory that was his when he was equal with God, took upon himself the form of a servant, and was born in the likeness of man. Then he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. “Therefore,” Paul writes, “God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father,” (Philippians 2:9-11 RSV). That is where God is moving. That is what he is here to do in this time and space continuum in which we live.

You and I know that it doesn’t look that way, does it? Men are living in a divided world, and it is evident on every side. We are out of step with nature, divided from nature. Something has come between us and the animals — they hate us, fear us, run from us. We destroy them, eliminate them gradually but steadily from the face of the earth. We pollute the rivers and darken the skies and build garbage heaps around us that we don’t know what to do with. We know we are doing this, but we don’t know how to stop it, because this is a divided world. Something is at work to keep us from being in harmony with the world of nature in which we live. We are at war among ourselves, with nation against nation, class against class. Struggle and strife and division are taking place on every side. Our newspapers are full of it, as you know. And each one of us is a walking civil war! Aren’t we? We fight within ourselves. We want to do something good, but at the same time we want to do exactly the opposite. We want both to have our cake and to eat it too, and we struggle constantly in this way.

Now, the great thought which Paul drops on us in this passage is that Jesus has come to stop all that. He has come to heal that division, to end it, to heal the broken relationships, to end the strife, to still the bitter, angry, hateful words that men say to one another. He has already started. He has begun healing, binding up, bringing all the divisions to a close. He himself said, “He who is with me gathers; he who is against me scatters,” Matthew 12:30, Luke 11:23). He has come as a healing force into the world to mend all the damage and bind up all the broken hearts. Paul makes a point of that. He says that the way this great fact was made known to us is by the life of Jesus. As he puts it,

For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ … (Ephesians 1:9 RSV)

It is very important to see that, because you will never understand the purpose unless you understand the way it was made known. There is something very remarkable hidden in this statement. You see, this is the way we can come to understand what is happening in the world of our day, the events of today. If you understand what this way is, and how it works, you can make sense of the events which otherwise don’t make sense at all.

This next week we will be observing the Republican convention in Miami Beach. How do you understand it, how does it fit in with what God is doing? “Well,” you Democrats say, “of course, it doesn’t!” — but it is necessary that you ask that question. How does the Vietnamese war fit in with what God is doing? You must never read your newspaper as unrelated to what God is doing. He is working in this world. Every event is brought about, and finds its meaning, because it fits into the plan that he has. So what part does it play? How do you understand it? Where does it fit? That is exactly what Paul is dealing with here — how to read your newspaper intelligently, how to see where these current events fit into the program and the working of God in the affairs of men.

This has been made known to us, he says, “in all wisdom and insight.” These two words, sophia and phronesis, were well understood by the Greek world. Sophia was the passion of the philosophers. They loved to try to find the secrets of life and to seek after wisdom. Phronesis was the common-sense, practical application of these to the problems of life. So Paul says that this mystery of God’s will came to us through wisdom and insight made known, or set forth, in Jesus Christ. There is your clue. It is in Christ that you see how this works.

If you think through the ministry of Jesus, you can see what he is getting at. The end results of the ministry of healing which Jesus came to do are visible in his works. This was why he did his miracles. There is that beautiful passage in Isaiah 35 where Isaiah predicts that God shall come to us. And what does he say will be the results? Why, the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped, the lame man shall leap like a deer, the tongue of the dumb shall sing for joy, and there will be healing manifest in nature on every side (Isaiah 35:5-7).

And that is what happened when Jesus came. He began to heal. He opened blind eyes and touched lame men and made them well. He mastered nature, stilled the storm, walked on water, changed water into wine. He mastered these forces. He delivered the oppressed from the realm of Satan. He set men free, he liberated them, and healed the hurt of their life. This was just the visible demonstration that the end result of his work, which he began then, would finally and ultimately be seen everywhere. So you see it in his works.

Now listen carefully: The principles by which this healing would take place in men’s spirits, as well as their bodies, are set forth in his words, in the words of Jesus. That is why it is so important to listen to the words of Jesus. The Gospel records of the messages and sermons of Jesus are so vitally important because there we have declared to us the radical approaches to life, the revolutionary principles, which will produce a new creation, and are producing it right in the midst of the destruction of the old. That is what is going on in life.

Have you ever really seriously listened to the words of Jesus? Take the Beatitudes, for instance: “Happy,” Jesus said, “are the poor in spirit,” Matthew 5:3). Do you ever feel that way? When you get poor, impoverished, in spirit, when you feel as if you have nothing left, feel that you have been drained dry and have no riches of spirit remaining to you at all — are you happy? Do you go around rejoicing and singing, “Oh, how great it is that I’m so poor in spirit!”? No. We say we’re depressed, and oftentimes we react with bitterness. But listen! Jesus says that is a golden moment. “Blessed [happy] are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” (Matthew 5:3 RSV). At that point, at that place, you are in a position to receive riches from a different source and by a different process than you could get at any other place, any other point of your life. There you are able to take them, nowhere else. “Happy are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted,” (Matthew 5:4). Do you ever think of yourself that way? Are you happy when you’re sad? It sounds almost contradictory, doesn’t it? But Jesus said that you are happy when you are mourning. Why? Well, because then you can learn about a source of comfort which is otherwise so incredible, so beyond human experience that no human being can give it to you. But you can have it at that point, and at no other place. “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted,” (Matthew 5:4 RSV). “Happy are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” (Matthew 5:5).

He goes on saying these radical, transforming things. And we listen to them and recite them and say that they are wonderful words, but we never take them seriously. Yet that is what Paul is talking about, these healing, unifying principles revealed in Christ which will transform lives. Do you live by those principles? Or do you live by the world’s interpretation of them? J. B. Philips, in his book, When God Was Man, gives the usual parody of the Beatitudes:

Happy are the pushers, for they get on in the world.
Happy are the hard-boiled, for they never let life hurt them.
Happy are they who complain, for they get their own way in the end.

Which do you live by? Which do I live by?

Happy are the blasé, for they never worry over their sins.
Happy are the slave drivers, for they get results.

The entire world of business is built on that one, isn’t it?

Happy are the knowledgeable men of the world for they know their way around.
Happy are the trouble makers, for they make people take notice of them.

These are exactly contrary to the words of Jesus. Notice how Jesus, when he is dealing with his disciples, takes these men of the world, with all their conventional approaches, and constantly, gently, and graciously corrects them. When they are arguing which is the greatest among them, he sets a child in their midst and says, “Look, you’ll never be great until you learn to be like this child. When you stop trying to be great, when you quit your struggling and manipulating and, in simple, childlike facing of life, trust God, then you can be great. But you never will make it otherwise,” (Matthew 18:1-4).

The mother of James and John comes to him and asks for positions of privilege and favor at his right and left hand for them when he comes into his glory. And Jesus says, “You don’t know what you’re asking. My kingdom isn’t run that way. No, that will be given by my Father to those for whom it is prepared.” And he goes on to tell what prepares us for it: “Unless you drink the cup that I drink of, and are baptized with the baptism with which I’m going to be baptized, you cannot understand or grasp or have that kind of position of privilege and favor,” (Matthew 20:20-23). By that he means the cross and the resurrection — the cross, with its denial, its setting aside of all the old ways, the ways the world operates, and its affirming of a wholly new process, a wholly new way of life, resurrection life — that, he says, will bring you to readiness for it. Nothing else will.

In Jesus’ parables you have so many revelations of a new way of life. The principles by which the new creation is going to come into being are revealed. How many of you men who work have ever wrestled with the parable of the laborers in the vineyard? How many of you have ever tried to justify in your thinking Jesus’ words that it was right for the man who owned that vineyard to pay those laborers the same amount of money, no matter whether they had worked the whole day long or only for an hour? Have you ever struggled with that? Why, the A F of L would shut that vineyard down within ten minutes if they ever heard of anything like that! They would never accept that as a way of operating. And yet Jesus says that is right. The owner of the vineyard has the right to be gracious above measure to some whom he chooses, and not to others. That is right. But that confounds us, confuses us, bewilders us, baffles us. We don’t understand that kind of thinking.

But that is what Paul means when he says that this plan which is working out right now in life was set forth in Christ. In the wisdom and insight of the Scriptures, you will find it, and only there. And yet there is a strange thing about that. When you read of the ministry of Jesus, you find that he himself announces that he came to be a peacemaker. He came to heal, to save, to deliver, to liberate. Yet he also said, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s foes will be those of his own household,” (Matthew 10:34-36). The strange thing is that at the beginning he seems to make things worse rather than better. He increases the division and the strife. He offended the rulers when he spoke. His disciples said to him many times, “Lord, don’t you realize that you offended those men?” (Matthew 15:12). “What you said made them angry. You are never going to make it as king if you don’t learn how to handle your public relations a little better!” He offended and baffled his own disciples. He hurt them at times by what he said to them. He sent people away instead of trying to get them to join his cause. And it all ended at last in the hurt and heartache and blood of the cross. But out of that hurt and destruction there came ultimate joy and blessing. That is what Paul is getting at here. And that leads on to the time when all this is going to be fully manifest. He says it will be:

…a plan for the fullness of time [or, literally, “unto the administration of the completeness of the seasons”], (Ephesians 1:10a RSV)

The seasons that he mentions here are the cycles of history. Any historian will tell you that history moves in cycles. There are times of peace and prosperity which move at last into apathy and lethargy, and this foments disquiet and uncertainty and then finally rebellion and revolution which brings about a change which results in peace and prosperity which, in turn, move into apathy and lethargy, etc. You can trace those cycles throughout history again and again and again. Those are what the Bible calls the seasons. Paul says that there is a time coming when all these seasons, which have been working on incessantly toward a great goal, will be fulfilled — the completeness of the seasons. Someday they will be ended. And then we will know that God has succeeded in tearing down the old creation, destroying it utterly, and at the same time has built up the new. Now here is a remarkable thought that Paul is conveying to us. When I started this summer to build an addition to my home the first thing we had to do was to tear off part of the roof. (I helped by falling through the ceiling!) The roof had to be destroyed first, eliminated. We had to destroy the old before we could build the new.

But the marvel of God is that he does both at the same time, and by the same process! Do you grasp the implications of that? You see, the heartache, the hurt, the suffering, the injustice, the misery, is the way he is tearing down the old. But that same heartache and hurt and suffering is the way he is building the new. That is what the Scriptures tell us. That is the amazing revelation, the amazing thought of God which is dropped upon us. And that is why we have references all the way through Scripture to our part in this — the fact that we are called upon not only to believe in Christ and follow him, but also to suffer for his name’s sake as part of the process. God is doing both at once. By means of the hate and the hurt and the suffering he is building the new creation. And when the old is destroyed, the new emerges, all finished, complete, and at the same time. That is the administration of the fullness of time. What is our part? Well, Paul has put it in one phrase:

…we who first hoped in Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:12 RSV)

That is our part. But this translation softens it to a degree that we miss a bit of what is said. What Paul literally says is, “We have been made his inheritance.” We saints are the inheritance of Christ, his heritage. In Verse 18 of this same chapter Paul refers to “the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.” It is necessary to understand what that means. There is a double inheritance in the Christian life. We inherit Jesus. He is our inheritance. He is our resource from which we draw. If you receive an inheritance you live on that basis. You use your inheritance to enrich yourself. And Jesus is our inheritance. We can enrich ourselves with him at any moment. He is our power, our strength, our love, our life, our wisdom, our truth. He is what we live by. Christ is our life.

But, and this is the wonderful thing, we are his inheritance. He draws on us. He takes us and uses us. He has prepared us. Our bodies and souls, our full humanity, are to be his to use to manifest the new creation in the midst of the destruction of the old. That is his inheritance in the saints. All that produces riches, not only in our life but in the lives of others, and in the world in general — the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.

What does that mean in practical terms? Well, that means that you and I must not complain any longer about what life hands us. It is the Father who has made that choice. He has chosen to put us where we are, and to put us into the situations where we find ourselves, and to give us the problems that we have, in order that, in the hurt and the heartache and the suffering, and in the joy and the blessing and the riches, whatever they may be, the life of Jesus may be released in that situation. By that means he destroys the old and brings in the new. And as we make ourselves available to him moment by moment, in the shop, in the office, in the home, in the backyard, wherever we are, and as we respond with joy and love and acceptance to the situation in which we find ourselves, God is glorified. Christ receives his inheritance. He finds riches of delight and enjoyment in that. The old is torn down, and the new is built in its place, all in one great, tremendous operation.

I don’t fully understand that, but I know it works. I know that is the way God is working. And therefore there is no escape from the heartache and hurt and suffering. It is going to be there for us. But it is an opportunity, never an obstacle! Let me give you an illustration which perhaps will involve you as well as me. In my mail yesterday was a thick envelope from the City of Palo Alto. I opened it and found a letter enclosing a petition signed by one hundred fourteen people who live right near this church asking the city to revoke our use permit and to restrict our operations as a church. My first reaction was anger. Why should they do this? Why should they try to stop what is happening here, what God is doing among us? Why should this resistance and opposition arise? I was resentful and felt defensive immediately. Don’t they know what’s happening in terms of changed lives? Don’t they understand that youths are being redirected, and older people revitalized, that homes are being blessed and marriages saved, that life is coming alive in new ways as never before to scores and hundreds of people?

But, of course, I immediately realized that they don’t know that. Most of them, probably, have never been inside; they’ve been only outside. And they’re upset. They are annoyed by people who park in such a way as to block their driveways. They are fed up with exhaust fumes because it takes so long for us to get out of our crowded parking lot. They have had enough of noise at night, and of lights that shine into their homes in the middle of the night, and a lot of other things which may seem small to us but which to them are irritations and aggravations.

And then I began to see what this is about. This is God’s opportunity given to us to demonstrate a real, genuine, loving spirit of appreciation and thoughtfulness to our neighbors. This is his opportunity for us to say “I’m sorry for hurt that we’ve caused, unwittingly to be sure, but inconvenience and annoyance and irritation nevertheless,” and for us to respond not in defensiveness but in love, to curtail the annoyances as much as possible, to return good for evil, to invite them to come and see what is happening, and to welcome them to share with us the joys as well as the irritations of what goes on. And, if God grants it, we hope that response will be received by our neighbors in a spirit of relief and acceptance.

I had said to myself, at first, “Why should this intervene? Why do we have to take time out to deal with these petty little problems?” But, of course, the answer is that these aren’t petty problems. They constitute a great opportunity, a glorious chance to know our neighbors, to break down barriers that we, unknowingly, have erected. It is a chance for the whole congregation to show some love and understanding, and to be extra careful not to annoy those around us, and to apologize when we have, and to renew relationships with these people whom God loves. That is why God sent it. And, in the process, he will bring in the new, and break down the old.

On every continent, in every country, in every city, in every family, people join together at times for celebrations. For instance, people celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. We decorate. We purchase cards and gifts. We take pictures r make videotapes to help us remember the celebration and all who participated in it.

As a nation, the U.S. celebrates various holidays—Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving. These celebrations include family, friends, picnics, fireworks, and parades. Through these special occasions we remember where we have been as a nation; what got us here; what we stand for; and how we fit into history.

When we come to the Bible, we discover that the most important celebration of our lives ought to be the celebration of what God has done for us through Christ. Every public assembly of God’s people should be a grand celebration of who Christ is and what He has done.

The opening words of the Book of Ephesians ring with celebration in Paul’s praises to God for all that He has given to us in Christ. We find in Ephesians 1:3–14 a single sentence saturated with celebration.

In a “trumpet blast” of praise, Paul celebrated that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ (1:3). He celebrated that God has made us His chosen people in Christ (1:4). Paul celebrated that God has adopted us to be His children (1:5). He celebrated the grace freelygiven to us in Christ (1:6).

Then we come to this spectacular statement: “In Him [Christ] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us. . . .” (1:7, 8).

In  Christ  we  celebrate  being  redeemed.  How does this celebration unfold?

WE CELEBRATE THE MEANING OF REDEMPTION

“In Him we have redemption through His blood, . . .” (1:7). Paul celebrated redemption in Christ, but what did He mean by “redemption”? Remember two words: “condition” and “cost.” Redemption  tells  us  something  about the condition we were in before we were redeemed. One commentator made this observation: “The fundamental idea of redemption is that of the setting free of a thing or a person that has come to belong to another.”

In the Old Testament, redemption was the price paid to gain a slave’s freedom. Redemption was also what God did for Israel when He liberated them from Egyptian slavery. Redemption means liberation or freedom from the control of another. Paul wrote about being “sold into bondage to sin” (Romans 7:14). Redemption reminds me of the condition that we were in before we

Redemption Through His Blood

Some years ago trading stamps were popular. For each dollar amount purchased a given number of trading stamps was given as a bonus. When sufficient stamps were saved up, they were taken to a redemption center and exchanged for merchandise.

Redemption is one of the central themes of Scripture and of the book of Ephesians, but it carries much more than the idea simply of exchanging one thing for another of equal value.

The Meaning of Redemption

Redemption comes from one of six terms taken from the field of law and used in the New Testament in relation to salvation. Dikaioō and related terms referred to legal acquittal of a charge and are used theologically to speak of a sinner’s being vindicated, justified, and declared righteous before God (see, for example, Rom. 3:4; 4:25; 5:18; 1 Tim. 3:16). Aphiēmi basically means to send away and was used to indicate the legal repayment or cancellation of a debt or the granting of a pardon. It is used in Scripture to refer to God’s forgiveness of sin (see Matt. 9:2; Rom. 4:7; Eph. 1:7; 4:32; etc.). Huiothesia referred to the legal process of adopting a child and is used by Paul to represent the believer’s adoption into God’s family (see Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:5; Eph. 1:5). Katallassō meant to legally reconcile two disputing parties in court and in the New Testament is used of a believer’s reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:8–20).

Two Greek legal terms are related to redemption. Agorazō, and the related exagorazō, refer to buying or purchasing. The source of the terms is agora, which means marketplace, and the root idea of the derived verbs and nouns referred to buying and trading in the marketplace. In the New Testament they are used to denote spiritual purchase or redemption (see Gal. 3:13; Rev. 5:9; 14:3–4; etc.).

The other term for redemption, lutroō (along with its related forms), meant to release from captivity. It carried an even stronger meaning than agorazō and is behind the noun rendered here as redemption. This word was used to refer to paying a ransom in order to release a person from bondage, especially that of slavery.

During New Testament times the Roman Empire had as many as six million slaves, and the buying and selling of them was a major business. If a person wanted to free a loved one or friend who was a slave, he would buy that slave for himself and then grant him freedom, testifying to the deliverance by a written certificate. Lutroō was used to designate the freeing of a slave in that way.

That is precisely the idea carried in the New Testament use of the term to represent Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross. He paid the redemption price to buy for Himself fallen mankind and to set them free from their sin.

Every human being born since the Fall has come into the world enslaved to sin, under total bondage to a nature that is corrupt, evil, and separated from its Creator. No person is spiritually free. No human being is free of sin or free of its consequences, the ultimate consequence, or penalty, for which is death (Rom. 6:23). “The soul who sins will die” (Ezek. 18:4).

Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin” (John 8:34), and Paul points out that every person has committed sin: “There is none righteous, not even one” (Rom. 3:10; cf. Ps. 14:1). In the same letter the apostle says that we are all “sold into bondage to sin” (7:14) and that, in fact, the whole of creation is enslaved to the corruption of sin (8:21).

Sin is man’s captor and slave owner, and it demands a price for his release. Death is the price that had to be paid for man’s redemption from sin. Biblical redemption therefore refers to the act of God by which He Himself paid as a ransom the price for sin.

In Romans Paul speaks of redemption as “our having been freed from sin” and become “slaves of righteousness” (6:18). In Galatians He describes redemption in saying that Jesus Christ “gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us out of this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father” (1:3–4); that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us” (3:13); and that “it was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery” (5:1). In Colossians the apostle says that “He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (1:13–14).

The writer of Hebrews explains redemption in these words: “Since then the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself [Christ] likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives” (2:14–15)

The Elements of Redemption

which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fulness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things upon the earth. (1:6b–10)

In this passage Paul mentions five elements of the redemption God offers fallen men through His Son, Jesus Christ: the Redeemer, the redeemed, and the redemption price, results, and reason.

the redeemer

Grace (v. 6a) is the antecedent of which. It is God’s grace (undeserved love and goodness) that He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved, and because we are in Him we have redemption. Jesus Christ is our Redeemer from sin, the Beloved (the word indicates the One who is in the state of being loved by God) who Himself paid the price for our release from sin and death. Because we now belong to Christ, by faith made one with Him and placed in His Body, we are now acceptable to God.

From the beginning of Jesus’ ministry the Father declared Him to be “My beloved Son” (Matt. 3:17). And because we have believed in Him, “He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Col. 1:13). Because we are now in the Beloved, we, too, are “beloved of God” (Rom. 1:7).

Only Jesus Christ has the inherent right to all the goodness of God. But because we are identified with Him by faith, that goodness is now also our goodness. Because our Savior and Lord is the Beloved of the Father and possesses all the goodness of the Father, we are also the beloved of the Father and possess all His goodness. Jesus said, “He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father” (John 14:21).

The Father now loves us as He loves Christ and wants us to have everything that Christ has. That is why Paul could say He “has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3). Every Christian is God’s beloved child because the Lord Jesus Christ has become our Redeemer.

The Old Testament concept of a kinsman-redeemer set forth three qualifications: he had to be related to the one needing redemption, able to pay the price, and willing to do so. The Lord Jesus perfectly met these requirements.

Charitoō (freely bestowed) is from charis (grace, v. 6a), and therefore Paul is saying that God has graced us with His grace. Christians are those who have been graced by God.

the redeemed

On us, “the saints … who are faithful in Christ Jesus” (v. 1), the Redeemer has freely bestowed His grace. We are the ones who have redemption through His blood.

In chapter 2 Paul reminds us of what we were like when God so graciously redeemed us. We “were dead in [our] trespasses and sins”; we “walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air”; we “lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath”; and we were without “hope and without God in the world” (vv. 1–3, 12). In chapter 4 he reminds us that we formerly walked in futility of mind, “darkened in [our] understanding, excluded from the life of God,” because of ignorance and hardness of heart (vv. 17–18). Those are the kinds of people (the only kind who exist) that God chose to redeem.

It is of course because men are like that that they need redemption. Good men would not need a Redeemer. That is why Christ “gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2:14).

Until a person realizes his need for redemption, however, he sees no need for a Redeemer. Until he recognizes that he is hopelessly enslaved to sin, he will not seek release from it. But when he does, he will be freed from the curse of sin, placed in Christ’s Body, and blessed with His every spiritual blessing.

the redemption price

In Him we have redemption through His blood, (7a)

The price of redemption is His blood. It cost the blood of the Son of God to buy men back from the slave market of sin (cf. Lev. 17:11; Heb. 9:22).

Shedding of blood is a metonym for death, which is the penalty and the price of sin. Christ’s own death, by the shedding of His blood, was the substitute for our death. That which we deserved and could not save ourselves from, the beloved Savior, though He did not deserve it, took upon Himself. He made payment for what otherwise would have condemned us to death and hell.

The blood of sacrificial animals was continually offered on the altars of the Tabernacle and then the Temple. But that blood was never able, and was never intended, to cleanse the offerers from sin. Those animals were only symbolic, typical substitutes. As the writer of Hebrews explains, “It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb. 10:4). But in the shedding of His blood, “we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (10:10). He “gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma” (Eph. 5:2). The Savior Himself said that His blood was “poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28). As the writer of Hebrews explains, Christ’s sacrifice was “not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Heb. 9:12–14).

We “were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold, … but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ” (1 Pet. 1:18–19). No wonder John saw the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders singing, “Worthy art Thou to take the book, and to break its seals; for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase for God with Thy blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. And Thou hast made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth” (Rev. 5:8–10).

The “redemption which is in Christ Jesus … in His blood through faith” (Rom. 3:24–25) has paid the price for those enslaved by sin, bought them out of the slave market where they were in bondage, and set them free as liberated sons of God. In their freedom they are in union with Jesus Christ and receive every good thing that He is and has. His death frees believers from sin’s guilt, condemnation, bondage, power, penalty, and—some glorious day—even from its presence.

the redemptive results

the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, (7b–9a)

Redemption involves every conceivable good thing, “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (v. 3). But here Paul focuses on two especially important aspects. One is negative, the forgiveness of our trespasses, and the other is positive, wisdom and insight.

Forgiveness. The primary result of redemption for the believer is forgiveness, one of the central salvation truths of both the Old and New Testaments. It is also the dearest truth to those who have experienced its blessing. At the Last Supper, Jesus explained to the disciples that the cup He then shared with them was His “blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28). Redemption brings forgiveness.

Behaviorists and those from some other schools of psychology maintain that we cannot be blamed for our sin, that it is the fault of our genes, our environment, our parents, or something else external. But a person’s sin is his own fault, and the guilt for it is his own. The honest person who has any understanding of his own heart knows that.

The gospel does not teach, as some falsely maintain, that men have no sin or guilt, but rather that Christ will take away both the sin and the guilt of those who trust Him. As Paul told the Jews in Pisidian Antioch, “Through Him [Christ] forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things” (Acts 13:38–39).

Israel’s greatest holy day was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. On that day the high priest selected two unblemished sacrificial goats. One goat was killed, and his blood was sprinkled on the altar as a sacrifice. The high priest placed his hands on the head of the other goat, symbolically laying the sins of the people on the animal. The goat was then taken out deep into the wilderness, so far that it could never find its way back. In symbol the sins of the people went with the goat, never to return to them again (Lev. 16:7–10).

But that enactment, beautiful and meaningful as it was, did not actually remove the people’s sins, as they well knew. It was but a picture of what only God Himself in Christ could do. As mentioned above, aphiēmi (from which forgiveness comes) basically means to send away. Used as a legal term it meant to repay or cancel a debt or to grant a pardon. Through the shedding of His own blood, Jesus Christ actually took the sins of the world upon His own head, as it were, and carried them an infinite distance away from where they could never return. That is the extent of the forgiveness of our trespasses.

It is tragic that many Christians are depressed about their shortcomings and wrongdoing, thinking and acting as if God still holds their sins against them—forgetting that, because God has taken their sins upon Himself, they are separated from those sins “as far as the east is from the west” (Ps. 103:12). They forget God’s promise through Isaiah that one day He would wipe out the transgressions of believers “like a thick cloud” and their “sins like a heavy mist. Return to Me,” He said, “for I have redeemed you” (Isa. 44:22). Even before the Messiah came and paid the price for redemption, God spoke of it as already having taken place. Depressed Christians forget that God looked down the corridors of time even before He fashioned the earth and placed the sins of His elect on the head of His Son, who took them an eternal distance away. He dismissed our sins before we were born, and they can never return.

Hundreds of years before Calvary, Micah proclaimed, “Who is a God like Thee, who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in unchanging love. He will again have compassion on us; He will tread our iniquities under foot. Yes, Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea” (Mic. 7:18–19).

To ancient Israel the distance from east to west and “the depths of the sea” represented infinity. God’s forgiveness is infinite; it takes away our trespasses to the farthest reaches of eternal infinity.

When Jesus comes into our lives as Savior and Lord, He says to us what He said to the woman caught in the act of adultery, “Neither do I condemn you; go your way” (John 8:11). “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death” (Rom. 8:1–2).

Forgiveness in Jesus Christ is undeserved, but it is free and it is complete. Those who have Him have freedom from sin, now and throughout eternity. In Christ our sins—past, present, and future—“are forgiven … for His name’s sake” (1 John 2:12; cf. Eph. 4:32; Col. 2:13). They were forgiven countless ages before we committed them and will remain forgiven forever.

Because we continue to sin, we need the continued forgiveness of cleansing; but we do not need the continued forgiveness of redemption. Jesus told Peter, “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean” (John 13:10). Even though we continue to sin, Jesus “is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). He forgives all our sins in the sweeping grace of salvation. That does not mean we will no longer sin, nor that when we do our sins have no harmful effect. They have a profound effect on our growth, joy, peace, usefulness, and ability to have intimate and rich communion with the Father. Thus the believer is called on to ask for forgiveness daily so that he may enjoy not just the general forgiveness of redemption, but the specific forgiveness of daily cleansing, which brings fellowship and usefulness to their maximum. That is the issue in our Lord’s teaching on prayer recorded in Matthew 6:12, 14–15.

There are no second class Christians, no deprived citizens of God’s kingdom or children in His family. Every sin of every believer is forgiven forever. God knows how we were, how we now live, and how we will live the rest of our lives. He sees everything about us in stark-naked reality. Yet He says, “I am satisfied with you because I am satisfied with My Son, to whom you belong. When I look at you, I see Him, and I am pleased.”

Because God accepts every believer as He accepts His own Son, every believer ought to accept himself in the same way. We do not accept ourselves for what we are in ourselves any more than God accepts us for that reason. We accept ourselves as forgiven and as righteous because that is what God Himself declares us to be. To think otherwise is not a sign of humility but of arrogance, because to think otherwise is to put our own judgment above God’s Word and to belittle the redemption price paid for us by His own beloved Son. A Christian who denigrates himself and doubts full forgiveness denies the work of God and denigrates a child of God. If we matter to God, we certainly ought to matter to ourselves.

A person may have many friends in high places. He may know presidents, kings, governors, senators, and world leaders of every sort. But such friendships pale beside that of the most obscure Christian, who not only is a friend but a child of the Creator of the universe.

Philip Bliss wrote, I am so glad that our Father in heav’n Tells of His love in the Book He has giv’n.

Wonderful things in the Bible I see; This is the dearest, that Jesus loves me. Oh, if there’s only one song I can sing,

When in His beauty I see the Great King, This shall my song in eternity be:“Oh, what a wonder that Jesus loves me!”

The vastness and comprehensiveness of our forgiveness is seen in Paul’s statement that it is according to the riches of His grace. God’s grace—like His love, holiness, power, and all His other attributes—is boundless. It is far beyond our ability to comprehend or describe, yet we know it is according to the riches of that infinite grace that He provides forgiveness.

If you were to go to a multimillionaire and ask him to contribute to a worthy ministry, and he gave you a check for twenty-five dollars, he would only be giving out of his riches. Many poor people give that much. But if, instead, he gave you a check for fifty thousand dollars, he would be giving according to his riches.

That is a small picture of God’s generosity. His forgiveness not only is given according to the riches of His grace but is lavished upon us. We need never worry that our sin will outstrip God’s gracious forgiveness. “Where sin increased,” Paul assures us, “grace abounded all the more” (Rom. 5:20). Our heavenly Father does not simply give us subsistence forgiveness that will barely cover our sins if we are careful not to overdo. We cannot sin beyond God’s grace, because as wicked and extensive as our sins might be or become, they will never approach the greatness of His grace. His forgiveness is infinite, and He lavishes it without measure upon those who trust in His Son. We therefore not only can enjoy future glory with God but present fellowship with Him as well.

Wisdom and Insight. The second result of redemption for the believer is his being given wisdom and insight. Sophia (wisdom) emphasizes understanding of ultimate things—such as life and death, God and man, righteousness and sin, heaven and hell, eternity and time. Paul is speaking of wisdom concerning the things of God. Phronēsis (insight), on the other hand, emphasizes practical understanding, comprehension of the needs, problems, and principles of everyday living. It is spiritual prudence in the handling of daily affairs.

God not only forgives us—taking away the sin that corrupts and distorts our lives—but also gives us all the necessary equipment to understand Him and to walk through the world day by day in a way that reflects His will and is pleasing to Him. He generously gives us the wherewithal both to understand His Word and to know how to obey it.

In Jesus Christ, God takes us into His confidence. “We do speak wisdom among those who are mature,” Paul said; it is “a wisdom, however, not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God predestined before the ages to our glory.… Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God” (1 Cor. 2:6–7, 12). He concluded that amazing passage by declaring, “we have the mind of Christ” (v. 16).

The French philosopher André Maurois said, “The universe is indifferent. Who created it? Why are we on this puny mud-heap, spinning in infinite space? I have not the slightest idea, and I am convinced that no one has the least idea.”

It is not surprising that those who do not even recognize that God exists, much less trust and serve Him, do not have the least idea of what life, the universe, and eternity are all about. Jesus said, “I praise Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and intelligent and didst reveal them to babes” (Matt. 11:25). James said, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5). When God takes away sin, He does not leave us in a spiritual, moral, and mental vacuum where we must then work things out for ourselves. He lavishes wisdom and insight on us according to the riches of His grace just as He lavishes forgiveness on us according to those riches.

the redemptive reason

according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fulness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things upon the earth. (1:9b–10)

Why has God done so much for us? Why has He blessed us with every spiritual blessing, chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world, made us holy and blameless, predestined us to adoption as His children, redeemed us through His blood, and lavishly given us forgiveness, wisdom, and insight according to the infinite riches of His grace?

God redeems men in order that He might gather everything to Himself. The time of that gathering will be the millennial kingdom, which will be an administration suitable to the fulness of the times. When the completion of history comes, the kingdom arrives, eternity begins again, and the new heaven and new earth are established, there will be a summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things upon the earth. Jesus Christ is the goal of history, which finds its resolution in Him. The paradise lost in Adam is restored in Christ.

At that time, “at the name of Jesus every knee [will] bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and … every tongue [will] confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10–11). Christ will gather the entire universe into unity (see Ps. 2; Heb. 1:8–13). At the present time the universe is anything but unified. It is corrupted, divided, and splintered. Satan is now “the ruler of this world,” but in that day he “shall be cast out” (John 12:31). He and his demon angels will be thrown into the pit during the Millennium, released for a short while, and then cast into the lake of fire for all eternity (Rev. 20:3, 10).

When every trace of evil has been disposed of, God will establish an incomparable unity in Himself of all things that remain. That is the inevitable goal of the universe.

Macbeth pessimistically declared that history is “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” (Shakespeare, Macbeth, 5.5.19).

Apart from the wisdom and insight God provides His children, such a hopeless conclusion is inescapable. But history belongs to God, not to the puny plans of man or the perverse power of Satan. History is written and directed by its Creator, who will see it through to the fulfillment of His own ultimate purpose—the summing up of all things in Christ. He designed His great plan in the ages past; He now sovereignly works it out according to His divine will; and in the fulness of the times He will complete and perfect it in His Son, in whom it will forever operate in righteous harmony and glorious newness along with all things in the heavens and things upon the earth.^[1]

WE CELEBRATE THE RESULT OF REDEMPTION

“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, . . .” (1:7; emphasis mine). The result of redemption is the forgiveness of sins.

The noun “forgiveness” (Gk.: aphesis) comes from a verb which means “to send away, to bid to depart.” God sends our sins away. They no longer stand between us and God.

Those who lived under the Old Testament had the scapegoat. On the Day of Atonement, the high priest would lay his hands on it as a sym- bolic transferal of all the sins from the people to the goat. The goat was then taken out into a remote place in the wilderness so that it would never be able to return to the camp. The goat was gone, and so were the sins (Leviticus 16).

Jesus Christ became our scapegoat. He took our guilt and accepted the punishment:

. . . the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him (Isaiah 53:6).

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21).

. . . He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, . . . (1 Peter 2:24).

A group of people were once asked about their religious beliefs. A number of different ideas were expressed about heaven and hell. One of the common views held by many of the respondents was this: Where you spend eternity depends on how good you are. In other words, if a person stays out of trouble, takes care of responsibilities, treats people well, and seems to have more good that can be said about him than bad, then that person will go to heaven.

That idea cannot be found in the Bible! The Bible teaches that none of us is good enough to go to heaven: “There is none righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:10); “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23); “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

Those three verses alone disprove the notion that goodness gets people into heaven. It does not matter if you are selected as the most outstanding student in your school, recognized by the civic club as a model citizen, or respected in your congregation as a person of concern and compassion. You cannot enter heaven just be- cause you see yourself as basically good. Goodness will not get us into heaven. None of us can ever be good enough. Our sins have seen to that.

The first time I sinned, the first time you sinned, it became impossible for us to get into heaven by being good. None of us can do any- thing to “de-sin” a sinner.

Regardless of how good we might seem to others, we are not acceptable to God. We cannot make ourselves acceptable to God. God alone does this by forgiving us. He does this by sending our sins away. That is why we celebrate the result of redemption—the forgiveness of sins.

WE CELEBRATE THE MEASURE OF REDEMPTION

“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us” (1:7, 8; emphasis mine). Paul affirmed the vastness and the completeness of our forgive- ness. The extent of our forgiveness is measured by the boundless grace of God which He causes to overflow into our lives.

God redeems and forgives according to the riches of His grace. God does not have a quota. God does not allow a person just so many “big” sins that we had better never exceed. “But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20). No human being can ever sin beyond the reach of God’s grace. Our sins never can be so horrible, never so numerous that His grace cannot handle them.

The truth is this: Goodness will not get you into heaven no matter how hard you try; however, incredible sinfulness will not exclude you from heaven if you put your trust in Jesus.

Thom Lemmons wrote a novel that takes readers back to the first century, to the time of the cross of Christ, and to the years that followed. The main character is a carpenter named Linus who was abruptly awakened one night and summoned to build a cross for the crucifixion of a rebellious teacher from Nazareth. He did it. Later that same day Linus stood by and watched Jesus of Nazareth bleed and die on the cross he had made.

Guilt overwhelmed him. He fled Jerusalem and set out on a search for both truth and life. Years later, the memory of the dying Galilean teacher still haunted him. Linus met a man from Tarsus, named Saul. In their imaginary meeting, Linus and Saul had this conversation:

“I am guilty—directly guilty of his blood! I knew, felt he was innocent, and yet I—” He could not make himself say the words, his mind absorbed by the blood of an innocent man. . . . “I built the cross on which he was killed,” he whispered at last, in a voice choked with shame and confusion. “I knew, and yet I consented—”

. . . Saul leaned over and gripped his fore- arm. “Surely you cannot imagine you have more guilt in this than I, carpenter. . . . But none of us can escape a part in his death. Don’t you understand, Linus? He is the Passover Lamb, slain once for the sins of the whole world—of everyone who has ever lived or who will ever live.”

Hot tears began to seep from Linus’s eyes. He shook his head, unable to see, unable to permit himself to accept—“Think of it this way, my friend,” Saul continued. “If your work contributed to his death, it has also contributed to a new life for the whole creation. You didn’t just build a cross, Linus. You also built an altar.”3

The  cross  confirms that we  cannot  sin so much or so horribly that God’s grace is power- less to do anything about it. Men took the perfect Son of God, stripped Him and beat Him, and hung Him on a wooden cross to die like a common criminal. They did everything they could to humiliate, hurt, and destroy Jesus. God’s grace was still greater than their sins. God took what they did to Jesus and made forgiveness possible through His blood.

CONCLUSION Have  you  joined  in  the  celebration  of  redemption?  Remember,  goodness  will  not  get you into heaven. The only way to enter heaven is to be in Jesus. Are you in Jesus? Commit your life to Him. Do not put this off another day! Redemption is still a reality. Forgiveness is still offered. Grace still flows.

3Thom Lemmons, Once Upon a Cross (Sisters, Oreg.: Multnomah Books, 1993), 304.

^[1] John F. MacArthur Jr., Ephesians, MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1986), 17–26.

One of the funniest cartoons I ever saw showed a lawyer reading a client’s last will and testament to a group of greedy relatives. The caption read: “I, John Jones, being of sound mind and body, spent it all!”

When Jesus Christ wrote His last will and testament for His church, He made it possible for us to share His spiritual riches. Instead of spending it all, Jesus Christ paid it all. His death on the cross and His resurrection make possible our salvation.

He wrote us into His will, then He died so the will would be in force. Then He arose again that He might become the heavenly Advocate to make sure the terms of the will were correctly followed!

He has chosen us (v. 4). This is the marvelous doctrine of election, a doctrine that has confused some and confounded others.

God chose us even before He created the universe…He knew mankind would need a Savior, so He decided that those who responded to this gift would be part of His spiritual family (“in Christ”), so that our salvation is wholly of His grace and not on the basis of anything we ourselves have done.

A woman died in West Palm Beach, Florida, at the age of 71. The  coroner’s  report  listed  malnutrition as the cause of death. The woman weighed only fifty pounds at the time of her death.

She appeared to have lived a hard life. Authorities found her house indescribably filthy. Neighbors reported that she had made frequent trips to their back doors to beg for food. Her clothes came from a charity organization. It seemed that a penniless woman had finally come to the end of her difficult journey.

As the police searched through her trashy house, they came across two keys. The keys led them to safe-deposit boxes at two local banks. When the authorities opened one of the boxes, they discovered more than seven hundred valu- able stock certificates and securities, along with about $200,000 in cash.

The second box held only cash—$600,000 worth. The woman had begged for food, worn secondhand clothes, and died of malnutrition, even though her estate was valued at over $1,000,000!

Paul wrote the Ephesian letter to Christians who were inclined to do with their vast spiritual resources what the woman in Florida did with her material resources—fail to put them to good use.

Christians today can make that same mistake. We have tremendous possessions in Christ, and no Christian should ever become spiritually malnourished or wasted. We simply need to put to good use what God has provided.

Ephesians affirms the limitlessness of God’s heavenly reserves. The epistle demonstrates that Christians need not be spiritually deprived. As God’s children, we have available to us resources which can make us incredibly rich in God. Paul described them as “the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us” (1:7b, 8).

The text sets forth a timeless truth: God gives every possible spiritual blessing to those who are in Christ. What do you have in Christ? You have everything God has to give!

GOD GIVES US BLESSINGS BY HIS OWN CHOICE

Paul’s words call on Christians to praise God: “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, just as He chose 2   us in Him before the foundation of the world, . . .” (vv. 3, 4a; emphasis mine).

Before the earth existed, God desired to share with Christians His love and the riches located, literally, “in the heavenlies.” God’s nature prompts Him to express His love toward others and to share His riches with them.

God determined by His own free choice to create sons and daughters in His own image. He gave them the ability to enjoy being with Him, loving Him, sharing His home, and praising His name.

1. Phillip Keller’s description helps us to imagine the reaction when God first let the heavenly realm know about His plan: “Insofar as we human beings can ascertain, it was possibly one of the most daring ideas ever generated in the council chambers of God. And we may be quite sure that when the scheme was made known a wave of excitement swept across the expanses of eternity. None of the angels or other ministering spirits had ever dreamed of such a stirring project.

“God was determined to reproduce Himself. He would bring into being and sonship others like Himself. He was intent on populating His heavenly home with freewill beings fashioned in His own character. They would be heirs and joint heirs with Christ, His Son, entitled to enjoy eternity in ecstasy.”

God freely chose to make us sons and daughters. What are we to do with the idea that God chose us to be His children in Christ?

We can settle for less. We can discount the notion that God wants us to be His children.

On the other hand, we can accept God’s best. His aim is to adopt us and make us His children, to make  us heirs of His riches, to bring out His image in us, and to share heaven with us forever.

Think for a moment. Where are you in all of this? Are you settling for less? Is God’s choice to make you His child and to give heaven’s riches to you something that makes you marvel? Do you not desire to let this happen in your life?

GOD GIVES US HIS BLESSINGS IN HIS OWN WAY

God gives us every spiritual blessing “in Christ.” The phrase “in Christ” or its equivalent occurs more than twenty times in Ephesians. Paul made prominent use of it in these early verses:

The faithful are in Christ (v. 1).                                 Every spiritual blessing is in Christ (v. 3).

We are holy and blameless in Christ (v. 4).                Grace is freely bestowed in Christ (v. 6).

Redemption/forgiveness  of  sins  are  in Christ (v. 7).    The chosen are in Christ (v. 9).

We are marked, or sealed, in the Holy Spirit to guarantee our inheritance in Christ (v. 13).

John 14:20 – “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”

Romans 8:1 – “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

2 Corinthians 5:17 – “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

Galatians 3:26-28 – “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, nor male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

1 Thessalonians 4:16 – “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.”

2 Timothy 1:9 – “Who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.”

These verses illustrate the profound implications of being “in Christ,” including themes of identity, salvation, unity, and empowerment.

If you’re interested in further exploration or discussion of these concepts, feel free to ask!

To be “in Christ” means that you belong to Him. You have been united with Him. All of the privileges, responsibilities, and expectations of being in Christ are yours.

It does not send shock waves through the corridors of heaven when God gives you a place in His kingdom. That comes with being in Christ.

Angels do not faint when God sends His Spirit to dwell in you. That comes with being in Christ. No one objects that God forgives all your sins. That comes with being in Christ.

Because God declares us and leads us to be holy and blameless, we should strive to live lives now that reflect the holiness and blamelessness that are our destiny.

Get back to basics. I must reaffirm my identity: I am God’s child. God has made me His child through Jesus. That is what He wants me to be. Next, I must reaffirm for myself that I am “in Christ.” Galatians 3:26, 27 says, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”

Use the basics. When I am discouraged with myself, I can often trace the discouragement to neglect of the basics. Like the “poor” woman in Florida, I have not used my possessions. That leads to spiritual starvation.

The basics include (1) the Word of God—studying it, memorizing it, meditating on it; (2) prayer—having regular communion with God; (3) service—personally participating in kingdom work; and (4) fellowship—sharing life with fellow Christians.

William Barclay: Paul thinks of the purpose of God’s choice. God chose us that we should be holy and blameless. Here are two great words. Holy is the Greek word hagios, which always has in it the idea of difference and of separation.

A temple is holy because it is different from other buildings; a priest is holy because he is different from ordinary men; a victim is holy because it is different from other animals; God is supremely holy because he is different from men; the Sabbath is holy because it is different from other days. So, then, God chose the Christian that he should be different from other men.

Here is the challenge that the modern Church has been very slow to face. In the early Church the Christian never had any doubt that he must be different from the world; he, in fact, knew that he must be so different that the probability was that the world would kill him and the certainty was that the world would hate him.

But the tendency in the modern Church has been to play down the difference between the Church and the world. We have, in effect, often said to people: “So long as you live a decent, respectable life, it is quite all right to become a Church member and to call yourself a Christian. You don’t need to be so very different from other people.” In fact a Christian should be identifiable in the world.

It must always be remembered that this difference on which Christ insists is not one which takes a man out of the world; it makes him different within the world. It should be possible to identify the Christian in the school, the shop, the factory, the office, the hospital ward, everywhere. And the difference is that the Christian behaves not as any human laws compel him to do but as the law of Christ compels him to do.

A Christian teacher is out to satisfy the regulations not of an education authority or a headmaster but of Christ; and that will almost certainly mean a very different attitude to the pupils under his charge.

A Christian workman is out to satisfy the regulations not of a Trades Union but of Jesus Christ; and that will certainly make him a very different kind of workman, which may well end in him being so different that he is expelled from his union.

A Christian doctor will never regard a sick person as a case, but always as a person.

A Christian employer will be concerned with far more than the payment of minimum wages or the creation of minimum working conditions. It is the simple fact of the matter that if enough Christians became hagios, different, they would revolutionize society.