LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS
Introduction to Ephesians
Ephesians 1:1-14
INTRODUCTION
Division Everywhere
Just a cursory glance at our world shows deep divisions. On the international scene our country is presently fighting 2 major conflicts: first in Iraq and second in Afghanistan. Radical Islamic fundamentalism is on the move attacking not only the American way of life but western civilization itself. Moreover, Iran right now is not only trying to build a nuclear weapon but is also claiming it will drop it on Israel as soon as possible. North Korea is rattling its sabers. Even Omar Khadafy, who became very silent the moment Ronald Reagan dropped a bomb on his tent, is beginning to rattle his saber. This is just on the international front.
On the home front, things are even worse. Today, Peggy Noonan, former speech writer for Ronald Reagan, published an article entitled "America at Risk of Boiling Over..." (and she is NOT referring to cooking). The division is so deep in this country that this past year a noted Russian sociologist claimed that within 10 years the United States will split into 5 separate nations. Whether that will happen or not remains to be seen; however, his prediction is based upon reality--the deep divisions in this nation.
Unfortunately, the church of Jesus Christ has not escaped the divisive nature of our day. The Roman Catholic Church is experiencing rebellion among many of its members because of its stance against abortion, gay "rights," birth control, etc. The Anglican Community is torn in two because of the disagreement over gay and female ordination. Lest the rest of the churches think that they have escaped all this division, they need to look at the number of Christian denominations in existence today to see just how divided the Christian faith truly is. Not only are there Baptists, Methodists, Church of Christers, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Catholics, Evangelical Free (Believer's Bible), Assembly of God and Pentecostals in the city of Corsicana, there are at least ELEVEN Baptist churches (Trinity, Cornerstone, Landmark, Unity, Missionary, Harmony, First, Northside, Memorial, Westside, and Immanuel), two Methodist churches, two Assembly of Gods, and three Churches of Christ in the city of Corsicana alone. This does NOT even include the Hispanic or African American churches in our area. What is even sadder is the fact that many of the churches are jealous of other churches and are more interested in robbing sheep than saving them.
It gets even worse. Within the churches themselves exists disunity. Jeff Mize, former music minister at Northside Baptist Church, claimed that there was a reason bars only had enough room for 25 people; get more than 25 people together in the bar and you are going to have a fight. He claimed that the same held true for churches. Worship, which should bring us together in praise of God and His Son, divides us. If a person doesn't like to worship the way I like to worship, then he is unspiritual, immature spiritually, or doesn't care about the lost. (All sides use the same arguments against each other.)
The Significance of Unity for the Church
Disunity is killing this nation and is killing our churches. But does all this division really matter? Yes, it does. First of all, Jesus Himself claimed that love and unity were the 2 most dramatic ways that the church of Jesus could show the world that Jesus Christ truly was from God, that He was God the Son, and that the church itself was divinely established: "The glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, that the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and didst love them, even as Thou didst love Me" (John 17:22, 23). See 1 John 4:12 for another passage on the importance of love.
The second reason all this division matters is that the enemies of the church use our divisions against us. Each semester I will have somebody of another religion claim that Christianity is not true because of all the divisions within it. That person consistently points to all the denominations found in Protestantism alone. Even though I am able to counter that argument by claiming that all the divisions are due to sinful human nature, the fact that they are able to use this argument means that something needs to be done in this area. (C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity says that he hopes that all this disunity is due to the relative young age of Christianity, that he hopes one day Christians will mature to the extent that unity will exist among us. It has not happened yet.)
If disunity can be used against the church, why then does unity point to the church as being from God? The reason that unity supports our claim that we are from God is that the world left by itself knows nothing but disunity and division. Milton Cunningham stated that in 5,000 years there have been 250,000 wars here on earth. The world doesn't know unity and can't produce it. When it sees love and unity, it knows that they didn't come from this world; it knows that there is something different about the church, that it must be from another world, from God. That is one of the main reasons unity is so important in the church.
Two Ways to Achieve Unity: The Way of the World and the Way of Christ
So how to achieve unity in the church? There are 2 ways: the way of the world and the way of Christ. Both ways though involve dictatorship, or rather, complete lordship. We can have a board of elders, a king, or a CEO who rules with complete authority. That is the way the world achieves unity—human dictatorship. This way works. Germany during the 1930's and early 1940's functioned smoothly and efficiently. Many mega churches today are slick machines. Why? Because Germany had a dictator and many mega churches have powerful CEO's posing as pastors running their operations. This way works. Many people longing for unity and well-run churches opt for this method of operating the church.
The second way involves dictatorship too: the dictatorship or lordship of Jesus Christ. We don't like to think of Jesus in terms of dictator; however, it is interesting that the Greek word from which we get our English word "despot" is the exact word used of Jesus Christ in Acts 4:24 (Grk: despota, pron. DESH-pah-tah). When Jesus is Lord of each individual life, Jesus exercising authority and leadership through His appointed church leaders, of those who make up the church, the church will experience true unity and true harmony.
This second method of operating is the one Paul proposes in Ephesians. The church at Ephesus was divided on the basis of race and culture: Jew vs. Gentile. Being a Jewish Christian meant more than just being physically descended from Abraham. It meant observing all the laws of Moses in addition to believing in Jesus Christ. Not only were the Gentile Christians NOT physically descended from Abraham, they felt no need to observe the laws of Moses. This division was tearing the church of Ephesus apart; in fact, it was tearing apart the church of Jesus during the first century. The same counsel Paul gives to this divided church in Ephesus is the same counsel our churches need today: focus on the lordship of Jesus Christ.
CHRIST, GOD'S ADMINISTRATOR OF THE BLESSING (1:1-14)
The Scripture
| 1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus : 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 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, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love 5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight 9 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him 10 with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him 11 also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, 12 to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. 13 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation -having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory. |
Key Verse: Ephesians 1:10
So how does God specifically achieve unity in the church? Paul expresses what God does in 2 different ways: (1) summing up all things in Christ and (2) Christ being the administrator--"with a view to an ADMINISTRATION suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the SUMMING UP of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth [not just on earth but on earth AND in heaven]."
Most of us can relate to the idea of "summing up" all things in Christ when we think back to our days of writing papers for our English teachers. For example, suppose you wrote a paper titled "Racism in Gone With the Wind." If you wrote that paper, then everything in that paper was supposed to be about racism in Margaret Mitchell’s masterpiece. If you added another topic, then you needed to change the title of the paper; otherwise, a good English teacher would count off for that error. The title "Racism in Gone With the Wind" was supposed to SUM UP everything found in that paper. In the same way, when Paul writes that God sums up all things in Jesus, He means that everything He does falls under the heading of Jesus Christ. All God does in heaven and on earth revolves around Jesus.
In case we still didn't "get it," look at the number of times Paul uses the phrases "in Him," "through Jesus Christ," "in Christ," or a similar phrase in these 12 verses, all referring to Jesus.
TEN times (there are 2 such phrases in v. 13) Paul uses these phrases to emphasize that EVERYTHING, I mean, EVERYTHING God does, He does IN CHRIST. God sums up everything under the title of "Christ."
The second idea is that of administration. I've seen 2 different kinds of experiences as an administrator. The first kind of experience was that the pastor actually allowed the administrator to administer the policies of the church AND then supported the administrator in what he did. (That administrator was careful though to make sure that he knew what the policies of the church were before he administered them.) The second kind of experience was that the pastor would undercut the way the administrator administered. He would encourage disgruntled employees to come to him and air their grievances, and might even then go in a totally different direction than the administrator went. If everything went south, the pastor could then blame the administrator for being poor at his job. This second type of administration was a disaster. It is not the kind of administration the Father has set up. He has set up Jesus as the administrator of all heaven and earth and supports Him totally in the way He runs the affairs of the universe. (Note though that Jesus keeps His eyes completely on the Father so that He runs everything exactly the way the Father would run things if He were the administrator.) This is the way God creates unity and not division in the church and in the universe. (Note again that Jesus is the administrator of heaven and earth. Only the Father Himself is exempt from being administered by Jesus--see 1 Cor. 15:27).
The Blessing (1:3)
In order to create unity, God sums up all things in Christ; God has made Christ the administrator of His divine agenda to make sure that unity exists. Just like earthly administrators, though, have something to administer (church policies, corporate policies, etc.), so Christ the divine Administrator has something to administer. So just exactly what is that agenda? Just what exactly is Christ administering? According to Paul, Christ administers the entire blessing God is bestowing upon His people: "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 Jesus" (1:3). This translation is a little misleading because it makes it seem that there are numerous spiritual blessings Christ is administering. For example, in a moment Paul will speak about God choosing us, adopting us, redeeming us, revealing to us a mystery, etc. This sounds like multiple blessings. The Greek literally though says that God has blessed us with the WHOLE SPIRITUAL BLESSING. In other words, there may be different parts to this spiritual blessing; however, there is really only ONE blessing. By this, I mean that Christ doesn't choose us and then fails to redeem us. He doesn't adopt us and then refuses to give us our inheritance. No. Rather once He starts administering the blessing to us, as soon as He chooses us, we are then going to be adopted, redeemed, etc. [This is what Paul means when he writes: "whom God foreknew, He also predestined; and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified" (Rom. 8:29-30). You don't get foreknown but not glorified. Once you've been foreknown, it is just a matter of time before you are glorified. The blessing may have many parts, but it is still just one blessing. Once you receive the first part of the blessing, it is only a matter of time before you receive the rest of the blessing.]
Before looking at the individual parts of the blessing Paul lists here in Eph. 1, we need to note that the parts of the blessing Paul mentions here pertain to the individual believer: choosing, adoption, redemption, etc. Christ, though, is more than just the administrator of salvation. According to John, although God designed the plan of creation, Jesus Himself was the administrator who actually did the creating of creation: "all things came into being through Him [Jesus] and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being" (John 1:3). Notice John says that all things came into being through Jesus. The word "through" means God was the designer but Jesus was the agent, the administrator who actually brought creation into being. Moreover, Paul claims that Jesus will one day and transform the entire universe, just like He transformed His body on Easter Sunday. All this is to say that Jesus is the administrator of all things, all things--except for God the Father (1 Cor. 15:27).
God LAVISHES the Blessing Upon Us
Before leaving this section, we need to notice a recurrent theme running throughout these verses. God doesn't simply give us this blessing; He LAVISHES this blessing upon us in great KINDESS and LOVE:
The fact that God is our Father explains why He lavishes all this upon us. Children live according to the standard of living their parents can afford. For example, when my parents were younger with several children, they didn't have a lot of money. In fact, one day my dad came home to a lunch of mashed potatoes, french fries, and potato patties because he and my mom couldn't afford much more. Now that is poor. Later when he became Vice President of Safeway Food Stores, mother made some incredible meals. Incomes determine our standard of living.
In the same way, God's "income" will determine the standard of living His sons and daughters will enjoy. His "income" will determine how lavish the blessing is that He is pouring out upon us. So the simple question is this: just how wealthy is our heavenly Father? Apparently wealthy enough to pave the streets of heaven with gold and to construct the walls of that city with diamonds/jasper.
Unfortunately, though we understand how our parents' income affected us while growing up, many of us fail to appreciate how the wealth of our heavenly Father affects us. We are like the passenger on a cruise ship who brought along peanut butter and crackers because he couldn't afford the lavish buffets the dining room provided each night for the passengers. Night after night he ate crackers and peanut butter. After the cruise was over and he started to depart the ship, the crew asked him why they had never seen him at the meals. When he explained that he had had only enough money for the cruise but not for the meals, they explained to him that the cost of the meals was included in the total cost of the cruise. All this time he had been shorting himself while he could have enjoyed lavish meals. Many of us are anorexic spiritually because we are not coming to the banquets our heavenly Father spreads out for us daily, banquets already paid for by the cross of Christ. The father was not defrauding the prodigal son when he told his servants to slaughter the fattened calf so that they could over the return of his younger son.