LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS
Paul's Role in the History of Salvation
Ephesians 3:1-21
INTRODUCTION
Unfortunately, many conservative evangelical Protestants have failed to appreciate exactly the role of the apostles in Christianity. Whereas we rightly emphasize a relationship with Christ, we fail to realize that our relationship with Christ is built upon the apostles and especially upon their teachings (Eph. 2:20). Peter may or may not be the first Pope as Roman Catholics claim; however, so much of our knowledge of the earthly life of Jesus is based upon Peter's memoirs of that earthly life (the Gospel of Mark). Paul is equally important in Christianity. Not just Christ--who is preeminently important--but also Paul himself. Paul should be important to us as well because his importance comes not from us and our opinion, but from Christ Himself.
PAUL'S ROLE IN THE HISTORY OF SALVATION (3:1-8, 11-13)
| 1 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles - 2 if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace which was given to me for you; 3 that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. 4 By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit ; 6 to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, 7 of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God's grace which was given to me according to the working of His power. 8 To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, . . . This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him. 13 Therefore I ask you not to lose heart at my tribulations on your behalf, for they are your glory. |
Whereas many of us understand that Paul is crucial for our understanding of salvation, that is it is by faith and not by works, we have failed to appreciate the main goal of his gospel of grace by faith: the uniting of the Jews and the Gentiles into the church, the body of Christ. Paul not only has helped us understand that God wants to unite all people in the body of Christ; Paul also wants us to realize that he is the one God chose to bring this about. In fact, at the very beginning of Paul's walk with Christ, when Christ saved him on the road to Damascus, Jesus made it perfectly clear that this was God's role for him and his ministry: "He [Paul] is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel" (Acts 9:15), not just before the Jews and not just before the Gentiles but before the Gentiles AND the Jews. Whereas Peter really was just the apostle to the Jews (Gal. 2:7), Paul had this unique role in the history of Christianity of appealing to and uniting both Jews and Gentiles, a role we are to continue to play out in our own ministries.
Some NT scholars would balk at this characterization of Paul because they would claim that just as Peter was sent to minister to the Jews, Paul was sent to minister almost exclusively to the Gentiles. Paul rejects such an idea. He was sent to both the Gentiles AND the Jews. "But then," you might say, "why did Paul focus only on the Gentiles?" First, when you read the Book of Acts, you discover that Paul always went FIRST to the Jewish synagogues to win converts before he turned to the Gentiles (see his ministry in Cyprus, Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens, and Corinth for verification). Second, one of the main reasons Paul turned to the Gentiles was to make the Jews so jealous that they would accept Christ to spite Paul: "13 But I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, 14 if somehow I might move to jealousy my fellow countrymen and save some of them" (Rom. 11:13-14). He was going through the back door by using the Gentiles in order to lead the Jews to Christ for salvation.
The sad thing is that from a human perspective, Paul failed. Whereas Christianity really started out primarily as a Jewish phenomenon and that as much as Paul wanted all his countrymen to be saved (Rom. 9:11-3), by the end of the first century A.D. Christianity was mainly composed of Gentiles. So many Jewish Christians withered under the intense pressure put upon them by the synagogue that they turned from Christ and went back exclusively to the synagogue. Before the end of the first century AD, many of the Jewish Christians would go to the synagogue on Saturday and worship in the church on Sunday. During the late 80's AD, though, the synagogue forced its worshipers to curse Jesus at the end of the worship service (this was part of the fifteenth benediction). This forced Jewish Christians to decide once and for all where they would worship: the church or the synagogue, Christ or Moses. Since leaving the synagogue meant being thrown out of the Jewish community (in some instances Jewish families would even conduct a funeral service for family members who converted to Christianity), most Jewish Christians rejected Christ and the church and returned exclusively to Judaism.
There has been almost a whole scale rejection of Christ by the Jew. According to Paul, though, a new day is coming in which God will once more focus attention upon the Jews: "and thus all Israel [after the time of the Gentiles] will be saved" (Rom. 11:26; see also Rev. 11:13). It will be one of the great events of the end times. It will be a day in which Paul will rejoice because it will fulfill so much of the ministry God had entrusted to him. The Jews will be saved and return to God but only by coming to Him through Jesus.
THE ROLE OF THE CHURCH IN GOD'S ETERNAL PLAN (3:9-10)
Paul is not the only one with a unique role in God's eternal plan; the church--YOU--have a role to play in that eternal plan.
| 9 and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; 10 so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. |
Too often we reduce church to being nothing more than it being about ME! Or it being about YOU! In fact, one of my Catholic friends was making fun of a Baptist church's slogan which ran: "It's all about YOU!" (He had a field day with that one.) Another church billboard claimed: "We're not about religion! We about relationships!" (That could actually be OK if it is speaking about a relationship with Jesus; however, unfortunately most view relationships as being between people and other people.) You and I seriously benefit from being a part of the church, a part of the body of Christ: we become sons and daughters of God, we receive salvation, we grow into the image of Christ, we have the potential to experience deep meaningful relationships with other believers.
Unfortunately, though, some Christians have perverted the church even further to the extent that they have made it nothing more than a marriage conference center, a child-rearing institute. Growing in our relationship with our spouses is a wonderful thing. Learning better how to parent our children is fantastic; HOWEVER, when these are the only goals of the church, they pervert the true meaning of the church. A lot of good parents and spouses will not be in heaven because they rejected Jesus.
It can be even worse though. Some people see the church as a place simply where they can find significance. They have been overlooked in society. They don't get invited to the best parties. They don't serve on powerful boards in the city. So....they make sure they are heard at the church. They try to finagle their way onto powerful committees in the church. Because they tithe, they feel like they can make demands of their pastor, staff, other Christians wouldn't dare dreaming of doing.
This can be true not only of church members but also of ministers. One youth minister told me about a pastor who was forced from his church because the finance committee refused to pay the $40,000 bill he presented to the committee as a payment for the Cadillac he had purchased (this was in the 80's when $40,000 was real money!). He felt like the church "owed" him the car because of all the travel he did in the city "ministering" to church members.
Well, the church is not all about me, about you, about ministers. God has something bigger for the church than that. According to this passage the church to a large degree is also to be God's divine messenger to the rest of creation: "that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places."
First, what is the message? It is that God is using Jesus to bring reconciliation, peace, unity not only between Him and mankind but also among ALL MEMBERS IN HIS CREATION. He is reconciling black to white, Hispanic to white, oriental to black, rich to poor, the high and mighty to the lowly, the powerful to the weak. Not only humans to humans but also angels to God, angels to angels, the world of men to the world of angels, you to everybody else in the universe, spiritual as well as physical. When Christians live under the lordship of Jesus and experience unity, they are then the message God truly wants to send out to all of creation, the physical as well as the spiritual.
Second, who is the message intended for? "The rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places." The message is intended for the angelic realm, for EVERYTHING ELSE created that is in the spiritual realm. When we are at peace with God and at peace with each other in the church, we are communicating to the spiritual realm God's great plan for the future--ALL THINGS IN HEAVEN AND IN THE UNIVERSE WILL BE AT COMPLETE PEACE AND UNITY WITH EACH OTHER because we are all living under the lordship of Jesus Christ.
How important then is the church? According to Paul, extremely important. Today in science and in philosophy classes, teachers/professors scoff at the ancient idea that the world is the center of the physical universe. We today now know that the earth is not the center of the PHYSICAL universe (the earth revolving around the sun being proof enough); however, it is definitely the center of the SPIRITUAL universe. It is to earth that God sent His Son. It is the human race God the Son became a part of. God the Son became Man, not a Martian! You, the church, are the center, the main focal point of God's universe. It is earth God uses to communicate to the rest of creation (spiritual as well as physical) that His plan for the future is complete peace and unity in all of His creation. This plan is seen first of all IN THE CHURCH; one day that plan will be realized in all of creation. When we are divided in the churches, we undermine the very plan God has for the churches; we send the wrong message out to the rest of creation.
So all this brings up a side issue. Is going to church on Sunday mornings all that important? Once Chuck McElroy and I were listening to somebody who claimed to be contemporary go on and on about how unnecessary it was to go to church on Sunday mornings. I leaned over and asked Chuck, "When did it become a bad thing to go to church?" That unfortunately many times is the impression people who love contemporary convey to others.
In light of that Paul says in Ephesians, though, the true answer to this question is "Yes, it is important to go to church." When asked that same question, C.S. Lewis answered: "My own experience is that when I first became a Christian, about fourteen years ago, I thought that I could do it on my own, by retiring to my rooms and reading theology, and I wouldn’t go to the churches and Gospel Halls; and then later I found that it was the only way of flying your flag; and, of course, I found that this meant being a target. It is extraordinary how inconvenient to your family it becomes for you to get up early to go to Church. It doesn’t matter so much if you get up early for anything else, but if you get up early to go to Church it’s very selfish of you and you upset the house. If there is anything in the teaching of the New Testament which is in the nature of a command, it is that you are obliged to take the Sacrament, and you can’t do it without going to Church. I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on I saw the great merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren’t fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit."
PAUL'S PRAYER FOR THE CHURCH (3:14-21)
| 14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith ; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. 20 Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, 21 to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen |
Unity does not come easy in the church. Although we are all part of one body, the body of Christ, we are still individuals within that body with individual differences which tend to divide us. I feel strongly about the things I believe, and you probably feel strong about the things you believe. I like a certain color of carpet in the church or a certain style of preaching from the pastor regardless of what everybody else wants, and because I pay my tithe, I should expect the church to cater to those likes. (Does that attitude hit home?) Moreover, because of the times we live in, we are hypersensitive demanding that people do not force their opinions upon us. How in the world is unity even possible?
Love is the answer. In concluding the theological section of this letter, Paul not only prays for the Ephesians, he prays that they truly achieve the unity God designed for them from the beginning, that this unity become real in their lives. He knows that they can achieve this unity only by love. For this reason, he prays three things for the Ephesians:
That They Love
The only way to achieve true unity is to love one another. It is so difficult to be divided when we truly love one another because love overlooks people's faults, people's idiosyncrasies. As Peter says, "Love covers a multitude of sins" (1 Pet. 4:8).
If you don't think that is true, then look at the way you respond to your own children. How many of you have children who have done the same wrong things other children have done who belong to a different set of parents? Whereas your children might have done the same thing the other children did, you tend to excuse or let off the hook your own children. "It wasn't their fault!" "Well, at least it wasn't as bad as what some other children are doing!" "My husband or wife is at fault because they neglect my child." Etc. Etc. Etc. I am not saying such things are right or wrong. I am saying, though, that these statements are flowing out of love. We cut our children slack sometimes way too easily simply because they are our children when we would never do the same to children of other parents. Why? Because of love.
Well, you should extend the same attitude to your spiritual family members. Cut them slack! Defend them! You might need to correct them for what they did BUT you had better make sure you are doing it out of love and not out of a sense of superiority or condemnation. Paul commands that we not only speak the truth but that we speak it IN LOVE (Eph. 4:15). When love flows through the church, unity is going to come naturally.
That They Love by the Power of the Christ Who Lives within Them
"But," you migth respond, "that kind of love for others is not within me." My answer to that is "You are right" and "You are wrong." You are right in the sense that this love does not come naturally from you. You are not born with that kind of love. BUT you are wrong in the sense that when you were born again at the time of your salvation, this love came to live within you. Why? Because Christ Himself who is love came to live within you. Now you may not have been tapping into that love and into Christ since the time of your salvation; however, that does not mean you don't have the power to love the way Christ commands you to love. You are just not using that power that is at your disposal. Remember that it is ONLY by the power of the Christ who lives in you that you can love this way.
Each morning in accordance with Christ's command (Luke 11:2) I pray through the Lord's Prayer. I get frustrated at times, though, because when I pray through the clauses "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done" in CAREY FORD, I realize that many times, if not most of the times, God's will is not done in my life. I feel frustrated and condemned. How can I do so many things Christ would have me do? Well, there may be many things I personally will never be able to do, but there is one thing I can do: be like Christ. Why? Because of the fact that Christ lives within me.
That They Understand the Love of God Seen in Jesus Christ
The final way that I can come to love others is by coming to understand the love God has for me in Christ Jesus. When you stop to realize all that God has done for you in Christ:
But isn't something wrong with God that He would think you or I are worthy of such blessings? Probably. He does appear to be a little crazy at times. But the truth is that that is what love does for you. A house is burning down. All the people and pets are out of the house—safe and sound. But the mother begins to weep because of all the family photographs that are going up in flames. Is she mad? Is she crazy? No, because although these photos are cheap by human standards, they are valuable to her because of love. Love makes the most insignificant things in the world valuable—at least to the lover. Because God is this Lover, we are valuable to Him. How can we who have received such love from such a Lover ever refuse to extend love to others? If we do refuse to, then either we are rebellious souls deserving of damnation or else we have yet to understand how great God's love truly is for us. Such love will create unity within the church. This love of God is given to us only through His Son, through His divine Administrator, Jesus Christ.