3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. 5He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will [Wright: “…that’s how he wanted it, that’s what gave him delight…”], 6to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight 9he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
11In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, 12so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory.
13In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; 14this is the pledge of our inheritance towards redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.
Ephesians 1: 3-14 NSRV
As we have just reflected in our prayer and share time, the world we live in, the lives we individually live, are imperfect. Individually and as communities—families, churches—we face challenges, disappointments, and hardships of all kinds. And, as we are painfully aware, we live in a broken world—filled with wars and rumours of wars until Jesus comes.
It was not any different 2000 years ago when Paul was traveling around Asia Minor, sharing the gospel and planting churches, of which the church in Ephesus was one. We can read about its founding in Acts 19. After some years, we read in Acts 20 about the Ephesian church elders coming to meet with Paul in Meletus as Paul makes his way to Jerusalem.
Paul naturally has a deep affection for the Christian churches that he helped to plant in Asia Minor. We know that they struggled with many challenges. For one, they lived in a totally pagan culture where life was cheap and immorality of every imaginable kind was rampant. It’s estimated that at least one of every five persons was a slave—and probably a higher percentage in the church congregations.
Life expectancy was only about 35 years on average—reflecting the fact that a third of infants died before 1 year of age and half before 10 years.
Violence and death were part of daily life for most. Unwanted infants were typically abandoned to landfill sites (where they became a source of new slaves).
There are places in the world today where these stats would be current realities. Ask my friend Trish about her work in Congo or Syria. And yet there are vibrant, faithful followers of Jesus in those environments—even as there was a living church in Ephesus in the NT time.
I share all this for a couple of reasons. One is to dispel any myth that there was a time when it was easy to follow Jesus, when it was easy to be a church. It’s simply not true. Some times and places have been easier, some have been much harder—but until Jesus returns, the challenge we face as followers of Jesus is how to live in a seriously broken world, a world (in Paul’s words) “groaning in the pains of childbirth.” So, while something wonderful is coming, and all the travail of labour is not meaningless, it remains true that the birth is not yet complete and the pain is real.
The second reason takes us into today’s text. Living in this broken world, Paul was deeply concerned that these new believers be well-grounded in their new Christian faith. They needed to have a solid foundation that would enable them to stand firm in their faith and be a witness to their communities of the saving power of the Gospel.
They need to know how the story of their lives—as individual believers and as a community—fit into the much larger story of God’s redemptive work.
To that end, Paul wrote many letters, including Ephesians. We are only looking at 1:3-14 today (one very long sentence in the Greek). I hope you will read the entire letter when you have a chance.
The letter may not have been expressly to the church in Ephesus (“Ephesus” in v1 does not appear in earliest mss.), but rather a circular letter to be shared with all the very young churches in Asia Minor that had grown out of Paul’s ministry. So it is a letter to young believers—from both Jewish and Gentile origins—to provide them with practical teaching, guard them against false teaching and provide them with guidance around how to live. To that end, the first half of Ephesians focuses on what God has done—the story of redemption—and the second half focuses on how we should live.
V3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus the Messiah, who has blessed us in Messiah with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places”
The story begins with God the Father and Jesus the Messiah.
We need to be careful to remember that ‘Christ’ is not Jesus’ last name, but his title, his office, his role. It is the Greek word that means “anointed one.”
It is impossible to overstate the full significance of this title within the Jewish context of Paul’s writing. Jews had been looking for this One who was promised throughout their scriptures.
For Jews, this reference to Jesus as Messiah reminds them of their entire history as God’s Covenant People, waiting on and trusting in God’s promises, going all the way back to Genesis 3 where God promised that the offspring of the woman would crush the head of Satan and described in passages like Daniel 7:13-14:
I saw one like a human being
coming with the clouds of heaven.
And he came to the Ancient One
and was presented before him.To him was given dominion
Daniel 7: 13-14
and glory and kingship,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
that shall not pass away,
and his kingship is one
that shall never be destroyed.
Paul is declaring that Jesus is the fulfilment of all these promises. Jesus is God’s Chosen One, the Priestly King of the Universe who holds all power and all authority.
Shakespeare once wrote that “All the world’s a stage.” Paul is saying something more—all of the Cosmos—the entire creation that includes all that is seen (by us) and all that is unseen—is the ‘stage’ on which the wise and gracious purposes and intentions of God are being carried out.
So Paul sets the stage—with God the Father, Jesus the Messiah and us in view—‘us’ being the community of Jesus followers, the “whole company of Christians, Jews and Gentiles alike,” fulfilling the ancient promises to Abraham and throughout the OT.
And Paul makes a breathtaking declaration: In Messiah we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing. Not will be blessed—HAVE BEEN. Not with some, but with ALL spiritual blessings.
In “heavenly places” Heavenly realms—the big, Big, BIG picture, including everything seen and unseen. Think of the book of Revelation—the much larger reality. Reality is MUCH larger than what we can see or experience from our earthly perspective. It is the entire Creation, seen and unseen alike, humans, angels, demons, God. What we see and experience is like a mayfly trying to make sense of human history.
We need to let that reality sink in. As Christians, this is our current reality—these blessings belong to us NOW. Of course we have to ask—what are these spiritual blessings? They certainly are not earthly riches, good health, freedom from suffering in this life. (Remember that Paul is writing this from inside a Roman prison, perhaps while chained to a Roman soldier!)
It is these “spiritual” blessings that Paul now goes on to describe—the story of God’s redemptive work that began back in Genesis.
4just as he chose us in Messiah before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. 5He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus the Messiah, according to the good pleasure of his will [Wright: “…that’s how he wanted it, that’s what gave him delight…”], 6to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
Ephesians 1: 4-6
For the Jewish believers, vs 4 would inevitably take them back to Genesis 12, when God chose Abram:
1Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Genesis 12: 1-3
God’s story—Abram to become a nation from which, ultimately, all the families of the earth will be blessed. Not because Abram is worthy. Not because Abram deserved God’s blessing or promise, but by God’s grace.
And Paul is saying that we, by virtue of being IN Messiah, are the recipients of that promise to Abram. That in Messiah, we have been chosen to be holy and blameless, adopted as God’s children, sharing in sonship with Jesus the Messiah—Jesus, who is God’s beloved Son and we, in Messiah, are brought into that community of gracious love.
The promise to Abram is fulfilled in Jesus the Messiah and we are the beneficiaries of that promise—we are the families that are blessed, “to the praise of his glorious grace.”
Grace—a gift, not earned, never earned. Simply received.
(Some folks struggle with trying to untie the knot of being ‘chosen’ and ‘destined’, trying to figure out predestination and etc. I think we need to leave the mystery to God and give him thanks and worship that we are invited to come to Jesus and trust him as Messiah. Nobody who desires to come to Jesus is turned away.
“Come unto me, all who are heavy laden and I will give you rest” on the entrance. “Chosen from before the foundation of the world” looking back…
It’s ironic that the people who should be anxious about their standing with God typically are not, while those who are anxious typically have no need to be so.)
Bottom line—by God’s glorious grace we are part of God’s unfolding story…
Which Paul goes on to exclaim:
7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight 9he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in the Messiah, 10as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
Ephesians 1: 7-10
Tom Wright:
Paul tells the story of the cross of Jesus in such a way that Jewish believers can hear, underneath it, the ancient Jewish story of Passover. Passover was the night when the angel of death came through the land of Egypt, and the blood of the lamb sprinkled on the doorposts rescued the Israelites from the judgment that would otherwise have fallen on them.
The word often used for that moment was ‘redemption’ or ‘deliverance’: it was the time when God went to Egypt and ‘bought’ for himself the people that had been enslaved there.
Now, again in fulfilment of the old story, the true ‘redemption’ has occurred. Forgiveness of sins is the real ‘deliverance’ from the real slavemaster. And it’s been accomplished through the sacrificial blood of Jesus.
This is the mystery that has been revealed to us—Jesus is the Messiah who has fulfilled all the promises of the OT, fulfilling the story begun in Genesis and with Abraham and with the nation of Israel.
We see the scope of what God has done in Jesus—the mystery being revealed that God’s redemptive purposes embrace the entire cosmos—everything in heaven and on earth comes under the loving rule of Jesus, the Messiah.
What Paul is making very clear is that our lives in particular and history at large are not meaningless or random. There IS a plan. And there will be a fulness of time—a completion of that plan, the full realization of God’s purposes. We don’t see it yet. Paul is writing this from prison. But it is certain. We are part of a much larger story. Our individual and collective stories are all part of God’s much larger story.
Paul goes on…
11In Messiah we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, 12so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. 13In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; 14this is the pledge of our inheritance towards redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.
Ephesians 1: 11-14
Once again, Paul’s language evokes the larger story of the OT.
The basic inheritance that God had promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was the land of Canaan. All the time that the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, this was the hope that kept them going: the hope that, whatever the turns and twists of the plot in the long-running story, God himself would eventually give them the ‘inheritance’: not a gift of cash, but the ideal land, the land flowing with milk and honey.
And here, in Messiah, we have THE promised inheritance. This is the mystery revealed, what Paul finally understood when he met Jesus—the Messiah is the fulfillment of all God’s promises. There is an eternal inheritance for the Messiah people, the people IN Messiah, “God’s own people.” And this inheritance is not a patch of earth but rather the whole world.
Vv 11-13 describe a new Exodus—the real exodus of which the ancient Jewish exodus was a type and symbol. As Messiah people in this current world, having set our hope in Jesus, we are on a journey, endeavouring with his help to live for his glory and praise. As in the original exodus, we face challenges and hardships. But we are IN Messiah. We are God’s people. We belong to God.
And as God’s people, we are called to be signposts, witnesses to the Messiah, our lives pointing to the future that God has promised—living ‘for the praise of his glory.’ (Demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Galatians 5:22-23)
Our help and our assurance in this calling and privilege is God’s Holy Spirit. The Spirit is God’s ‘pledge’—legally binding assurance—that the inheritance is ours.
May the Lord help us to embrace and celebrate this vast cosmic story to which we belong.
As Wright notes:
“There is a larger framework, a larger story, within which our own smaller stories become more interesting and important… Only by understanding and celebrating the larger story can we hope to understand everything that’s going on in our own smaller stories, and so observe God at work in and through our own lives.”
Whatever is going on in your life, it is part of the work that God is doing in the world. With God’s help may we trust his promises, resting in his grace, and live to the praise of his Glory.
I Cor 1: 20 “For in him every one of God’s promises is a “Yes.”