Ephesians has been called the summit of the new testament. `It must be manifest to the most casual reader that we are upon very high and holy ground here’, said William Kelly a century ago as he launched out on his classic commentary. `Ephesians is a wonderful book` said our lead pastor Paul Lapworth rather more recently(!), `It lifts us up and give us a vision of God’s eternal purposes – a wonderful book just to soak in!`
So true! This is brilliant stuff that can really give us a deeper vision of God. This is doctrine as it’s meant to be – the basics for life, fuel for vision, and vision as the fuel for discipleship and praise…
From the very start, we sense that Paul’s vision here is possessed by the ultimate. A quick glance at other epistles’ openings confirms that he’s onto something special here. No other letter has an opening paragraph like this one, sweeping from before creation in v4 to the climax of time in v10. Paul begins almost in ecstasy – `Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ!’
If we’re feeling jaded, not moving spiritually, that joyous `every’ sounds tantalising – an uncompromising challenge that God might be doing more in us than we think. (I write that from recent experience…) There’s no explanation yet as to what so pregnant a promise will mean. But if we want to catch up with an apostle possessed by this sort of revelation, we probably need to join in with a conscious response: Yes, Lord…
No explanation yet, and maybe, in one sense, there’s no explanation possible. Clearly there are spiritual steps forward that depend as much on divine, revelatory grace breaking in on us as at our initial conversion. That’s what Paul prays for as the chapter proceeds: `that God may give you the Spirit of revelation, so that you may know Him better'(v17). Spiritual knowledge is inextricably supernatural in origin (compare 1 Cor 2:7-12). Without the Spirit speaking to us, there is nothing; it is not optional. (Then Lord: please teach me!)
As we read these first paragraphs, we sense Paul lifted up, overwhelmed, stretched for superlatives in his exuberant rejoicing over God’s predestined plan for us. We’re talking destiny here! Paul turns to one expression after another to convey something of God’s goal for our existence. All of us who are `in Christ’, who have been `included in Christ’ by faith (1:13), have been chosen from the very creation to be `holy’ (v4). God’s loving predestination brings us into the bizarre position of sons and daughters to the Almighty (v5). Our very existence is so that we might `be for the praise of his glory’ (vv6,12,14), and, ultimately, participate in `the mystery of His will’ when history is consummated – that inauguration of an unimaginable cosmic unity of `all things in heaven and earth… under one head, even Christ'(vv9-10). He will do all this, promises Paul; we can collaborate or not, we can go the long way round or not, but as believers that’s where we’re going. That’s the purpose; that’s the vision for us. (Lord: praise be indeed to the glory of Your grace…!)
Now there may be a problem here for some of us that hinders our enjoying and worshipping God for what He’s doing here – the whole issue of God’s election and predestination. God, how could it be that You chose me and not my relatives? Why me and not my neighbours? Did they never have a chance? And how can that fit what v4 says about our having been predestined `in love`?
This is something about which different Bible Christians have various well-thought-out viewpoints. I want to tiptoe round the issue, partly because I know very well there are much godlier people than me who see it very differently from myself. But two things here may lift a burden from some of us, and help us join together in worshipping God for His cosmic plan.
First, let’s look carefully at the passage and what it’s actually about. It’s not actually talking about how or whether God predestines people to heaven or hell, or to be Christians or not; it’s talking about some things that are predestined for us because we are Christians. Look at v4: we’re chosen to be what? Holy. Then v5: we’re predestined for what? To be adopted by God. (There was nothing to force God to do that; it was solely His wonderful choice!) Then vv11-12: we’re predestined to be what? To be for the praise of His glory! (It’s rather like what we get in Romans 8:29, where it says that those who God knew about in advance He predestined to be `conformed to the image of His Son`, made just like Christ.)
And secondly, what both v4 and v11 are talking about is that we are `chosen in Christ`. So again, this passage is not talking about whether we are predestined as individuals to be in Christ or not, where some people are predestined to be in Christ and others are not; rather, what it’s saying, surely, is that God chose those who are in Christ, who have stepped, come, into Christ, so that they should be holy and blameless and for the praise of His glory. I pray that we can feel the huge encouragement of this: if we’ve become Christians, all God’s almighty power is there to work out our destiny! He’s going to bring us into all that heaven means, and make us 100% like Jesus! We can choose to go the long way round, we can even force God to do surgery on us; but in the end this fantastic glorious loving purpose for us will be fulfilled!
So this doesn’t deny our freedom; divine predestination and human freewill belong together here! It’s like: if you freely choose to get on the train at platform 10 at Reading you will find you’re destined to get to London, no matter what. So it is with us being in Christ!
And if we grasp these things we grasp the purpose of our existence. That purpose is that God has chosen us to be holy, v4; He’s chosen, predestined us, to be adopted as His children, v5 (and incidentally, Wow!) And He’s chosen and predestined us to be for the praise of His glory, vv12,14. As the Westminster Catechism says so magnificently, our chief purpose in existence `is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever`! (Besides 1:12, we can find that in Isaiah 43:7 and 21.)
Now this – that the whole purpose of our existence is to bring glory and praise to God – is a priority for Paul. (See, for example, his thought-pattern in 2 Cor 9:12-13.) When this is happening, we’re being what we were created for; this is where we’ll be most truly ourselves. Every day, that’s what we’ve been made for! (So… how does that work out today? And tomorrow?)
So now: since this is God’s cosmic plan, the purpose of our being: how do we get `included` in it? (To pick up from three paragraphs back, how do we get onto the train?) It’s through `redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins` (v7). And then when we look at v13 there are three things on our side:
1 `You heard the word of truth.` Postmodern culture, turning away from God, distrusts words, and sometimes that distrust creeps into the church: `Preach the gospel at all times and use words if necessary.` But that’s not the gospel at all. The only way to be included in Christ is if we hear and believe the word. (See also Romans 10:13-14.)
2 And the second step in v13 is, believe. And let’s be clear: in the new testament that word doesn’t just mean tick a box; it means that we stake our whole life on that conviction.
3 Then the third step in v13: `You were marked with the Spirit`. Because the Spirit and Word always go together! Jesus describes the mark of the Christian as being `born again of the Spirit` (John 3:8); in 1 Peter 1:23 it’s `you have been born again… through the living and enduring Word of God.` (That’s one reason why I’ve loved being in UCCF and IFES: these are places where reformed Christians who love the Word and charismatic Christians who love the Spirit join together and enrich each other!) So we trust God the Holy Spirit because, if we’ve believed, He’s surely come to be within us!
Let’s close with three aspects of the sheer glory of this, because Paul is enormously excited about what it means. It’s not the whole story of life in the Spirit: we’re marked by the Spirit (or `have the Spirit`, Rom 8:19) when we’re born again, but as Eph 5:18 commands, we still need to be continually filled (it’s a continuous verb), day by day by day. But, this being `marked by the Spirit` when we become Christians matters enormously. To have received the Spirit as God’s mark of ownership means God says about you, You’re mine! In modern Greek this word means engagement ring: to everyone else it’s saying, Hands off!, and to us God is saying, You’re mine, I will care for you and will keep you safe! It also means, as Paul says in 1 Cor 6:19, we are not our own now. Meditate on this and allow the Spirit to bring the glory of it home to you!
Secondly, the Spirit is a `deposit` until our final, complete `redemption` (v14): He is the guarantee of the colossal glory to come! `No eye has seen, no ear heard, no mind has conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him` (1 Cor 2:9). We’re made for infinite joy, for heaven beyond our imagination; and as we’ve received God the Spirit, He’s going to get us safely there!
And then thirdly, a `deposit` is something we can actually benefit from now. God’s Spirit’s presence in us is something that can make a difference right now – the point at which the powers of heaven are breaking in now. It’s not the full harvest yet, but (Rom 8:23) we have the `firstfruits of the Spirit`. We are `the temple of the Holy Spirit` (1 Cor 6:19); as such we are carrying around, wherever we go, all His power, and all His goodness. Grasp this and it will change how we think of ourselves!
So as we move on from reflecting on this glorious passage, this vision of the ultimate, let’s walk tall! We’re carrying into the world the power that changes everyone who wants it back to God, back to their destiny, back to joy, back to love, back to God! And still more: what this wonderful passage helps us start to grasp is what a great thing it is to have come, and be, `in Christ`. Our faith isn’t just something small and insignificant; in the end, everything in time and space that matters must be bound up with Him, is in, from, through Christ. Let’s recap to help us worship: it’s `in Him’ we were chosen, and `through Him’ we were predestined, amazingly, to be God’s sons and daughters. It’s in Him that we’re given all His glorious grace (v6), and `in Him` that we’re redeemed, and in Him only (v7)! (This is not a colourless `legal fiction’, as theological liberals sometimes say, but a profound cosmic mystery: it’s because we are brought into Christ that we find ourselves benefiting from the price paid for our sin `in His flesh’ (2:15), and find ourselves also `made alive with Him’ (2:5), `raised up with Christ’, and `seated with Him in the heavenly realms’ (2:6).) It’s `in Christ` that we received everything we could possibly need (1:3); above all it’s `in Him’ we were `marked with the Holy Spirit’ (1:13). And we’ll find this in the rest of the epistle: only `in Him and through faith in Him’ can we `approach God with freedom and confidence’ (3:12); `in Christ’ we are `created to do good works’ (2:10); and it’s `in Him’ we are `built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit’ (2:21,22). It’s as `members of the one body’ of which Christ is the head that we are `sharers together in the promise’ – again, `in Christ Jesus’ (3:6 (cf 1:22-23)).
So much fuel for worship in all these; don’t we start to feel very clearly why Paul began Ephesians with that cry of joyous praise, `Praise be to the Father’, because `every spiritual blessing’ is now ours, `in Christ’ (1:3)?! The whole cosmic plan was `purposed in Christ’ (1:9), and `accomplished in Christ’ (3:11); Christ is its climax, Christ its beginning, Christ its end (1:10). It is Christ who is, in every sense, the ultimate. That’s why Paul cries out in the middle of Ephesians, `To Him be glory in the church – and in Christ!'(3:21); that’s why he brings his whole colossal epistle to its logically inevitable conclusion, with another cry of prayer and adoration: `Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love undying!’ (6:24)…
So let’s take a moment – we who were created to be `for the praise of His glory`! – to absorb what we can of this, and turn these things right now into joyous praise!
(For the rest of this series please click on https://petelowmanresources.com/category/bible-introductions-3/romans-to-philippians/ .)
