The Apostle Paul is writing to the church at Ephesus to remind them of some vital truths about unity in the church. To start off this letter, he goes over the beautiful doctrines of salvation so that the church will recognize its basis for close and loving fellowship.
God is to be blessed (v. 3) because of His abundant and lavish works that He has performed in this world. He has, through Jesus Christ, assured and guaranteed a plethora of rich gracious benefits to us saints which we enjoy in part now and will fully realize in heaven. Why do these blessings occur? Because God, before this world was ever created, planned and chose everything beforehand, including each of us saints. The purpose for this? That we should be holy and blameless before Him, completely spotless, free from sin, free to joyously burst out in everlasting praise of His greatness and His majesty (v. 4). This happened by His adopting of us into His family through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We were formerly children of Satan, in hatred of the one true God. Many of us invoked His name, but still had our own desires and agendas at the center of our hearts instead of His glory. But God adopted us into His family when we trusted in Christ Jesus and we are now truly His children, entitled to the very same privileges as His Son. Children are closer to their Father than anyone else can be! How wonderful to be that close to the Almighty God! (v. 5)
Even more amazingly, Paul adds that all of this was according to the "good pleasure" of His will. This means that God alone decided who was to be part of His family. Nobody's merits were taken into account but instead the sole desire of the Almighty was the determining factor. God desired to create a family of loving saints. He desired to be glorified by our praises. He desired to be honored by the wonderful works of salvation which He performed for millions of people.
Since He is perfect and completely free from sin and error, should we question that He knows what's best? The good pleasure of a Perfect Being should put an end to all debate about whether He was right to choose this person or that to receive into His family. Besides, our Lord's beauty is further shown in the fact that His grace is particularly magnified by this working of His good pleasure towards us undeserving ones. Because of Christ, the Beloved One, Who paid for our sins when we could not take even one of them away by all our fervent good works, we are accepted in His sight, to the praise of the greatness of our Father's grace, which He worked in us solely according to His perfect desire (v. 6).
Paul then narrows His focus to the work of Christ. We have redemption through His blood - we have been bought out of slavery by His grace. Formerly, we were suffering in the prison of sin, bound to Satan and unable to follow after what was good and holy. But Christ, as it were, was walking by the prison and specifically for each one of us, paid the price to buy us out of this slave market prison so that we are now free in Him. That is what redemption is - Christ bought our freedom with a price. This in itself is a remarkable display of God's amazing grace, which to us is richer than we can ever imagine. Forget the fact that millions are perishing in hell! Focus instead on the glorious grace of God in which myriads upon myriads of filthy, despicable beggars were cleansed from their wickedness and made to shine with holiness! (v. 7) As I've said in other entries on this blog, God's wonderful grace in saving sinners is more amazing than the pouring of His wrath out upon unbelievers. Paul definitely followed this mindset; in fact, he continues the thought in verse 8 - Christ has lavished His incomparable grace upon us. The terms used express the highest extreme of abundance: God has, as it would seem, literally and superfluously poured all of His riches out on us! This is one reason I am so impressed by this passage - because there is no end to the majestic wonder of God. Since He is infinite, His riches are likewise infinite - yet He is represented here as bestowing them all upon us, us who only deserved eternal damnation. This is why Jesus Christ is our all in all - for everything we know, have, and are is bound up in Him.
For the next two verses, Paul gives a very concise statement of the reason why God set this wonderful plan of salvation into motion. In verse 9, he says that God has revealed that which was formerly a "mystery." In the context of Scripture, a "mystery" is a truth which was hidden from humans in the past but has now been revealed by divine revelation from the Lord. Basically, in this case, God planned to wait until this time (i.e. the time of Paul and the early church) to show us more fully what He was planning to do in this stage of history. The thought continues into verse 10 - God's plan for this age is to make Jesus Christ the sum of all things and the unifying focus of human history. In the Old Testament, the Messiah was only prophesied and prefigured by shadows and typological references; but now, it is clear that everything revolves around Him and His work on this earth. There is nothing which Christ is not involved or acquainted with - from the salvation of people to the glorifying of Himself through nature to the judgment of wicked reprobates. It is God's intention to wrap up all this into one towering glorious accomplishment which will give all of us no doubt that Jesus is the reason for everything. This world was created to glorify the Godhead - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - and Christ is particularly singled out here because He has done so much in this world. Let us thank God that He has shown this great truth to us and not confused us by keeping it hidden!
Our inheritance, our all, our future, our hope, is now in Christ. Having been chosen and foreordained by God, Who does everything the way He wants to do without any external or internal hindrance, we are now to bow in humble adoration at His magnificent plan to honor Himself (v. 11-12). The first people to trust in Christ received this incredible privilege with unspeakable joy, since these things were only just revealed; but for us saints even 2,000 years later, the glory is still not diminished. Salvation is still as incredible as it was at the very beginning. God's purpose will not be thwarted - let this be a great solace and encouragment to us who suffer the ravages of time and circumstance so frequently! We need a solid foundation to cling to and stand on rather than on shifting sand that blows everywhere which the winds of compulsion bid it go.
Finally, to conclude this section, Paul addresses the matter of our eternal security in Christ because of our sealing by the Holy Spirit. When we heard the Good News of salvation and trusted on Christ to bear our sins, the Holy Spirit took us into God's family and bound us irrevocably into His glorious lordship. The Spirit is our guarantor; He has placed down our down payment, so to speak, and He fully intends to pay the rest so that we may be received into glory. This will happen when we stand before Jesus Christ in heaven spotless, without any stain of sin left. The Spirit assures our transition from the moment we get saved to the moment we enter upon eternal glory. Our inheritance in our Father's House is promised to us, but has not actually been physically given yet; the Spirit guarantees this. We have heard tidings of fabulous living quarters, dwelling with God Almighty Himself, and we have received irrevocable and assured pledges that we will indeed receive all these remarkable blessings. Now it only remains to enter upon what we already possess in title and deed and experience the full consummation of heavenly glory. It is fitting that Paul should conclude this amazing exposition of doxological doctrine by confirming that we will indeed experience fully what God has said and done for us. We thus can be joyous in such a broken and ruinous world as we presently experience!
I pray that your hearts have been warmed by my little insights into this passage. Obviously, much more could have been said, but my purpose was to stir up my fellow saints' love for our beautiful sovereign God and to show my fellow dwellers on this earth the great worthiness of the God who gave so much of Himself to redeem a special people for His own possession. This God is truly deserving of our full worship! So turn to Him, and be a part of His work of redemption. We find our full worth in Him, and not in ourselves. :)
Take care, and I'll post again in a few days.
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The "pro" (before) prefix of the participle "prohlpikotaV (having before hoped)" no more describes believers being the first to hope in Christ in Ephesians 1:12 than the "pro" (before) prefix of the participle "proorisaV" (having before ordained) describes God being the first to ordain us to the adoption in 1:5. We know from Romans 8:23-25 that the adoption is the resurrection, and we know from Ephesians 5:27 that it is at the resurrection that Christ presents the Church glorious and holy and without blemish. So what Paul is saying in Ephesians 1:4-5 is that God ordains us to the adoption (the resurrection) "before" ("pro" prefix) we are holy and without blemish at the resurrection. Likewise, we know from 1 Corinthians 15:19-23 that we hope in Christ in this life before and until the resurrection at the coming of the Lord, and we know from Romans 5:2 that boast in hope of the glory of God (at the resurrection), and we know from Ephesians 1:14 that it is at the resurrection (the redemption of the possession) that we are for the praise of God's glory. So what Paul is saying in Ephesians 1:12 is that we (the saints) hope in Christ (in this life) "before" ("pro" prefix) we are for the praise of His (God's) glory at the resurrection. Paul is not saying anything in Ephesians 1:12 that he does not consistently and repeatedly express throughout his epistles, namely, hope before glory. Thus, there is no reason to think that the referent of "us" in Ephesians 1:12 is anything other than what it is stated to be in 1:19: "us, the ones believing (the saints [all believers])." As for Ephesians 1:13, it no more says "you also" than 1:11 says "we also." In 1:11, Paul says, "in whom also we were made an inheritance." In 1:13, Paul says, "in whom also you ... were sealed ...."
In 1:11, Paul says, "in whom also we were made an inheritance." In 1:13, Paul says, "in whom also you ... were sealed ...."
Why does he shift from "in whom also we" in 1:11 to "in whom also you" in 1:13 to "our" in 1:14? For the same reason that he shifts from "us" to "you" in 2:5 to "us" in 2:7 to "you" in 2:8 to "we" in 2:10, which is the same reason that he shifts from "in whom all the building (we)" in 2:21, Paul explicitly including "you" in "all the building (we)" in 2:19-21, to "in whom also you" in 2:22. Paul is not differentiating two different groups, "we" the one group and "you" the other group. Rather, he is emphasizing the inclusion of "you" (the believers to whom the epistle is written) in "we" (all believers). He is making what he is stating to be true of all believers (we/us/our) more personal for the believers to whom the epistle is written (you/your) by intermittently inserting "you" (the believers to whom the epistle is written) where he would normally say "we" (all believers) in stating what is true of all believers (we/us/our). Thus, what is true of all believers (we/us/our) in Ephesians 1:11-14 is this: "in whom also we were made an inheritance ... in whom also we ... were sealed with ... a guarantee of our inheritance." But in order to make this more personal for the believers to whom the epistle is written (you/your), Paul says it this way: "in whom also we were made an inheritance ... in whom also YOU ... were sealed with ... a guarantee of our inheritance." And in 2:5-10, instead of saying, "even being, us, dead in the trespasses, He made alive with Christ--by grace we are saved--and He raised with and He caused to sit with in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, so that He would show in the coming ages the surpassing the wealth of His grace in goodness on us in Christ Jesus ...," he says, "even being, us, dead in the trespasses, He made alive with Christ--by grace YOU are saved--and He raised with and He caused to sit with in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, so that He would show in the coming ages the surpassing the wealth of His grace in goodness on us in Christ Jesus ...." And in 2:21-22, instead of saying, "in whom all the building (we) ... is growing into a holy temple ... in whom also we are being built into a dwelling place of God ...," He says, "in whom all the building (we) ... is growing into a holy temple ... in whom also YOU are being built into a dwelling place of God ...." Paul does the same thing in Romans 7:4 and 8:12-15, in Galatians 4:5-6, in 1 Corinthians 6:2-3 and in Colossians 2:13 and 3:4. In none of these passages does Paul differentiate "we" and "you" as two different groups. Rather, he emphasizes the inclusion of "you" in "we" in order to make what he is stating to be true of all believers (we) more personal for the believers to whom the epistle is written (you).
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