LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS

Introduction to Ephesians
Christ, God's Administrator (Part Two)

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Ephesians 1:1-14

INTRODUCTION

In Ephesians Paul is addressing the issue of unity in the church. In the early church two distinct groups were emerging in competition against one another: the Jewish faction and the Gentile faction. The Jewish faction claimed that believing in Christ, though necessary, was not enough. for salvation. One also, according to the Jews, had to adhere to the Law of Moses. The Gentiles, though, had not been brought up with the Law of Moses because it was basically a Jewish phenomenon. As we saw in part one of this study, God not only considers the unity of the church as essential, He has provided a way to produce that unity--He has appointed Jesus, not Moses, as the sole Administrator of the blessing.

Note that God has appointed JESUS as His strong administrator. Unfortunately, when people cry out for dictatorship, they have admitted that they were not able to handle the freedom God has given them. Instead of acting responsibly, they have created chaos and confusion. The solution? For some, the solution is dictatorship (or strong leadership). For God, the solution is submitting to Jesus as God's Divine Administrator through His divinely appointed leaders (whom Paul will identify in Eph. 4:11). When we submit to Christ's administration, unity will automatically occur.

What is Christ administering? The "whole blessing of God" (Eph. 1:3). The phrase "whole blessing of God" is a little too general. In the rest of verses 3-14 Paul will flesh out exactly what that blessing is. Again, remember that we don't receive just one part of the blessing. The blessing is a whole with several parts. Once you tap into the blessing, it is only a matter of time before you receive the entire blessing.


INDIVIDUAL PARTS OF THE BLESSING (1:3-14)

The first part of the blessing revolves around God's choice, His choice that we be holy and blameless before Him. "Choice," when used in the Bible, normally indicates that God has chosen us to be separate, not to be like the world. The word "holy" actually means "separate," that is we are not to be like the world. In the specific context of Ephesians, whereas the world is fractured and fragmented, the church of Jesus Christ is to be holy by being united, one. We are to be so separate from the world in our unity that the world will know that while we are "in" the world, we are not "of" the world.

At this point, many of our Calvinist friends jump in and claim that this verse means that God chooses some to damnation and the rest to salvation. In order to protect the sovereignty of God, John Calvin claimed that God the Father (not Jesus) chose people to go to hell even before they ever lived. First, where in these verses does it say that? Where do you find the word "damnation" or "hell"? I don't see it anywhere in this verse. You have to read that thought into this verse--which is very dangerous. Second, the idea of God choosing to send somebody to hell BEFORE he or she has ever lived totally contradicts this verse. Remember that this whole passage is about Jesus the Administrator, that everything goes through Jesus, something Calvin did not do when he came up with his view of God choosing people for damnation. No one believes that the Jesus of the Bible would automatically send somebody to hell before they ever lived. Well, if Jesus the Administrator of the entire created universe (material as well as spiritual, verse 10) wouldn't do this, then God the Father wouldn't do it either. Jesus is either the sole Administrator of the entire physical/spiritual universe, or He is not. It is that simple.

(Most of us have heard of either Calvin or Augustine who came up with this view of the choice. About 100 years before Augustine, though, a giant of the Christian faith, Athanasius, whom God used to save Christianity, actually interpreted the idea of "choice" the way I did up above. He based his interpretation upon Eph. 1:4.)


The second part of the blessing is our adoption into the family of God. Before we became Christians, although God loved us with a fatherly kind of love, we were still nothing more than creatures, not sons and daughters of God. When we became Christians, God adopted us--we who were creatures became sons and daughters of God.

Now our adoption differs from natural, physical adoption. Recently, the wife of a deceased pastor I knew sweetly adopted 2 children from Taiwan. Before she adopted them, they looked oriental; after she adopted them, they still looked oriental. There was no DNA change in the children when she adopted them. When we became Christians though, we experienced a massive spiritual DNA change because the Spirit of Jesus, God's Son, came to live within us. At that point, we literally became sons and daughters of God (Rom. 8:15-16; 1 John 3:1-2). We became brothers and sisters in Christ. The rest of the Christian life is allowing that spiritual DNA to change us completely into the image of Jesus.

What is true about physical brothers and sisters should also be true about spiritual brothers and sisters. My brothers and sisters and I used to fight like cats and dogs at times. My 2 brothers constantly picked on me; my oldest sister constantly told on my older brother. I was the only perfect one of the lot. LOL! Yet, let one outsider pick on me or on one of my siblings, and the other siblings would then and still do come to the defense of the brother or sister who is being picked on. Well, we are brothers and sisters in Christ--and not just one of us, but all of us are being picked on. Later in Ephesians Paul will explain the spiritual warfare that is being launched against us. Instead of being fragmented, we need to be coming to each other's defense--in unity.


The next part of the blessing is redemption. The word "redemption" has behind it the idea of warfare. In every war some soldiers are captured and given the status of prisoner-of-war. These prisoners-of-war are not just simply released; rather somebody has to ransom them, has to pay for their release, either with money or by exchange of prisoners.

Well, we too are in a state of war--spiritual war. Satan has taken billions of people prisoner, spiritually. We are initially slaves of sin, death, and Satan. Christ, though, ransoms us, that is pays for our release, not with gold or by exchanging other prisoners but rather with His blood which He shed on the cross (Mark 10:45). This is THE ONLY RANSOM which can pay for our freedom. There is NO OTHER RANSOM available for our freedom, for our salvation: "For there is ONE God and ONE mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus who gave Himself as a RANSOM for all" (1 Tim. 2:5-6).

The world finds the Christian claim that Christ alone is the ransom for our salvation intolerable. As G.K. Chesterton said though, the world finds true Christianity intolerable because it is intolerant. According to Christianity if a person makes it to heaven, then it is only because he is in a right relationship with God through Jesus Christ. PERIOD.

When I was in Israel (March 2000), one of the people with me put her arm around my shoulder and gently chided me, saying that Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc., were going to heaven, not just Christians. I responded: "Ma'am, I don't know who is going to heaven, but I do know that Jesus said that He was THE way, THE truth, and THE life, and that NO ONE comes to the Father but through Him. As long as I am a Christian, I need to have integrity and not change what Jesus said." Period.


Next, Paul writes that Jesus "made known to us the mystery of His will." The word "mystery" (Greek, musterion, pron. mew-STARE-ee-on) is a technical word in the NT unlike our use of the word. When we use the word "mystery," we think of secrets that need to be solved. In the NT, though, the word means that the mystery has been solved; the secret has already been revealed by none other than Jesus Himself.

According to Paul, all the secrets are in the OT; the answer to the riddles are found in the NT, in Jesus. In an Agatha Christie mystery, she will lay out all these clues before you and at the end of the novel have Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple explain what they all mean. Well, in the OT we have all these clues and Jesus comes to be our Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple explaining all the mysteries in this case.

  1. Eve will have a son who will one day crush the serpent (Gen. 3:15).
  2. God will one day raise up a prophet just like Moses (Deut. 18:18).
  3. God will bless Abraham and his seed (Gen. 13:14-15).
  4. God will bless David's son who will reign eternally (2 Sam. 7:12-16).
  5. The Servant of the Lord will suffer for the sins of God's people (Is. 53:6).
Those are the clues in the NT. Christ comes, though, and explains what these clues mean: HE is the Son of Eve who crushes Satan (Rev. 12:1-9); HE is the promised seed of Abraham (Gal. 3:16); HE is the prophet (John 6:14); HE is David's Son who will reign forever and ever (Matt. 20:30); HE, Jesus, is the Servant who suffers for the sins of His people (Mark 10:45). As Paul writes to the Corinthians: "For as many as may be the promises of God, in Him they are YES!" (2 Cor. 1:20). In other words, God sums up ALL THINGS in Jesus; He has made Jesus the Administrator of the entire blessing.

The list above is not exhaustive by any means. When John calls Jesus "the Word," he means that Jesus is the agent/administrator God used to create the world and is using right now to re-create the world (John 1:3, 12). Paul claims that the Passover Lamb actually pointed to Jesus as God's Lamb sacrificed for the sins of the world (1 Cor. 5:7; see also John 1:29, 35). The NT also refers to Jesus as the true manna (John 6), the Rock of the wilderness wanderings from which flows living water (1 Cor. 10:4), etc. Again, all this is to say that God sums up ALL THINGS in Jesus; He has made Jesus the Administrator of the entire blessing, that Jesus is the solution to the great riddles in the Old Testament.


The next part of the blessing Christ lavishly administers for us is the inheritance. This concept is a little strange to most Christians; however, if they were to think for just a minute, they would realize how much our faith centers around the idea of the inheritance. What do we call the first 39 books of the Bible? The Old TESTAMENT. What do we call the last 27 books of the Bible? The New TESTAMENT. In what sense do we mean the word "testament"? In the same sense of last will and TESTAMENT, that is the document which people read to determine where the inheritance is going after a person dies. [This is the sense of the word when the author of Hebrews writes: "For where a covenant [testament] is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it. For a covenant [testament] is valid only when men are dead, for it is never in force while the one who made it lives" (Heb. 9:16, 17).]

Well, somebody has to die before the last will and testament becomes operative. This may get a little confusing but stay with me here. Normally, the dad (parent) dies before he leaves the inheritance to the children. In this situation God is the Father. But He didn't die. No, but Jesus died in His place; with the death of Christ, we see the death of God. The wild thing is that even though Jesus died on behalf of His Father, as the Son, He then receives the inheritance. For this reason, only AFTER THE DEATH OF GOD the Son does the Scripture say: "He [God the Father] has put all things in subjection under His feet [the feet of Jesus]" (Eph. 1:22; see also 1 Cor. 15:27 and Matt. 28:18). ALL THINGS, things in heaven, on earth and under the earth have been given to Jesus as His inheritance, that is everything that belongs to the Father. For this reason Paul cries that the next major event on God's calendar is the complete exaltation of Jesus Christ: "that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. 2:10-11). ALL THINGS WILL BE SUBJECTED TO THE SON (except for the Father Himself) because He has received the full inheritance after God died on the cross (1 Cor. 15:27-28).

Things get even wilder now. In his letter to the Romans Paul writes that we Christians are JOINT-HEIRS with Christ: "" (Rom. 8:17). What qualifies us to be joint-heirs with Christ? Right before Paul claims that we are joint-heirs with Christ, he writes that at the time of our salvation, the Spirit of Christ, God's Son, comes to live within us so that we literally becomes sons or daughters of God (Rom. 8:12-16). In fact, we are now so much God's sons and daughters, that like Jesus Himself, we too can call God, "Abba, Father!" (the very name Jesus called His Father while on earth).

Just what does it mean to be a joint-heir with somebody? It means inheriting everything that they inherited. In other words, whatever Christ inherited upon the death of God (His death on the cross), we too shall inherit. What did Christ inherit? Everything under heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth. Paul elsewhere claims: "ALL THINGS BELONG TO YOU, whether Paul or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life or death, ALL THINGS BELONG TO YOU, and you belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God" (1 Cor. 3:21-23).

To us, all this may seem a little strange; however, if you are familiar with the writings of C.S. Lewis (especially his children's stories), you will remember that he treats them as royalty. In The Magician's Nephew, Frank and Helen become kings and queens in Archenland because they are human and are believers in Aslan (Jesus). Moreover, the climax in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe is not the death and resurrection of Aslan, but rather the coronation of the children. A careful reading of Revelation shows that the coronation of God's sons and daughters becomes the climax of human history. After John describes the 1000-year reign of Christ and the coming of God Himself to dwell among us, John climaxes all this with the statement about us: "they will reign forever and ever" (22:5), not the coming of Christ or the coming of God the Father Himself, but rather the reign of the saints. That is mind-blowing; however, it is exactly what John writes.

We don't want to speculate too much on what all this means; however, the Bible does give us some hints of what this means for us. Christ claims that we shall inherit the earth (Matt. 5:5). Paul states that we shall judge angels (1 Cor. 6:3. John writes that just as Jesus sits on the throne with His Father, so we too shall sit on the throne with Jesus (Rev. 3:21). Right now we are beginning to experience our coronation because even now God commands His angels, these powerful spiritual beings, to serve us who are His sons and daughters (Heb. 1:14).

Notice that this inheritance is not just for a select group of Christians. It is for ALL Christians because ALL Christians are sons and daughters of God because God the Son lives in them. We have ONE inheritance. We all share the SAME inheritance. This common inheritance should unite us, not divide us.


The last part of the blessing Paul focuses on is the gift of the Spirt. It is only appropriate that Paul mentions the Spirit last because He is last in the sense of "final" and "ultimate." (Karl Barth, one of the great Protestant theologians of the 20th century, wrote that when you say "the Holy Spirit," you've said the last thing.

In what sense is the Spirit last? First, in order of emphasis in the Bible, He is the last. God [the Father} is the primary focus of the Old Testament. Jesus, God the Son, is next focused on in the Gospels. Lastly, after the ascension of Christ do we see the Scriptures focus on the Spirit (Acts 2 and His descent at Pentecost).

The Holy Spirit is also last or final in an ultimate sense. Christ, God's Administrator, uses the Spirit to bring about the end, the consummation of all His work. It is the Spirit Christ uses to re-birth us, to transform us into sons and daughters of God (John 3:3, 5; see also Acts 2:17). It is the Spirit Jesus uses to transform the physical universe radically to become a suitable dwelling place for the transformed sons and daughters of God and for a dwelling place of God Himself (Rom. 8:19-23). Christ uses the Spirit to make the last things real.

The wild thing is that as good as the end is going to be, the end has already started in the lives of believers. Why? Because the Spirit who will bring about this glorious end already lives within us. As believers, we have heard God inform us that on the Day of Judgment He will declare us "Just." Even today, when a group of Christians is sitting around and enjoying fellowship, real fellowship and not just eating/drinking, they are getting a true taste of the fellowship of the saints in heaven. The joy many of us feel at times here on earth because of our relationship with Christ is a true taste of the joy of heaven. Why? Because the same Spirit who will bring about the end and therefore the true beginning of all things already lives within us and is giving us a true taste of that end, of that future.

Giving us His Spirit is wonderful indeed. Notice though that He doesn't simply "give" us the Spirit, He "seals" us with His Spirit. Just like the brand on cattle indicates who the cattle belong too, so our seal, our permanent "brand" of the Spirit of Christ indicates that we belong totally to Jesus.

Moreover, this Spirit is given as a pledge of our inheritance. The word "pledge" can mean that the Spirit is the first installment of several payments God is making His children. If somebody gives you an ONLY deposit, then no more money is on the way; however, if somebody gives you a FIRST installment, a FIRST payment, then at least a second is on the way.

More wonderful is the fact that the word translated "pledge" is the Greek word arrabon (pron. AIR-ah-bone) which is actually used to describe the wedding ring. The wedding ring is a pledge. By giving the bride the wedding ring, the groom is pledging himself and all he has to his bride. The ring is the first installment; more is on the way! It is in Ephesians 5 that we read the highest description of Jesus as the groom and of the church as His bride. He gives us a wedding ring, the Spirit, to assure us that even more is yet to come! As Pastor Marty of Pathway Church in Longview once said: "May the passion of the bride (the Church) match the passion of the Groom (Jesus)."


THE NEED FOR FAITH

When you read 1:3-14, on the surface, it appears that Paul is a universalist, that is that this blessing is meant for all, for everyone who has drawn breath upon the earth. Paul, though, states in v. 13 that a person must exercise faith in order to receive this blessing: "In Him, you also, after listened to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation--having also believed." The blessing is not automatic; it is bestowed upon people who place their faith in Jesus. He alone is the divine administrator; God sums up all things under the heading of "Christ" alone. Faith activates that blessing in the life of the believer.