The Text: Ephesians 1:1–10
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are also faithful in Christ Jesus: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
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, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us. For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fulness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
Introduction: The Pearl and Its Origins
A pearl begins to grow when a piece of grit finds its way inside the shell of an oyster and begins to irritate the soft flesh inside. To protect itself, the oyster secretes a hard substance around the grit, and it grows and grows until it becomes the most beautiful and precious thing — born entirely out of irritating circumstances.
Among the letters of Paul, his letter to the Ephesians is the pearl of great price. Commentators have called it the queen of all the epistles. But we need to remember that this lovely pearl was formed in irritating circumstances. The writer is in a prison cell, chained permanently to a guard from whom he can never escape. A very active open-air man is now enclosed and shut in. And from that cell, he takes a pen and writes a letter like this.
It is as if the most precious things God can say to people come to them when their earthly circumstances are very hard. God speaks words that are more precious than anything he says when everything is going smoothly.
The Structure of Ephesians
The theme of this letter is the purpose of God — and that includes two things, like a twined flex. Strand one: God’s plan. Strand two: God’s power. God not only has a plan; he has the power to put it into operation. The whole epistle is concerned with a purpose that will be fulfilled because God has both the plan and the power to complete it. These two words — purpose and power — occur again and again throughout the letter.
The letter divides clearly into two equal halves: chapters one to three and chapters four to six. The first half is concerned with the salvation that God works in; the second half with the salvation that we work out. The first half is about belief; the second about behaviour. The first half is about our experience of Christ; the second about our example to others. The first half covers worship and witness; the second our walk and our warfare. The first half tells us what we are saved by; the second what we are saved for. In short: adoration, then application.
The Greeting: Verses 1–2
The introduction in the first two verses is a typical Pauline greeting. Four words deserve attention.
Apostle
The word literally means sent. Paul makes clear that he was sent not by his own choice but by the will of God. This means that every word Paul writes comes to us not as Paul’s opinion but as God’s word. He had no ambition to be a missionary — as a young man his aim was to kill the gospel dead. But God had other plans. When God sends you, you go, and you can do no other.
Saints
God calls every believer a saint — not a few special people who have been canonised by an institution, but everyone who is in Christ. Paul says: I am an apostle — a privilege of few. But you are saints — a privilege of many. He adds one qualification: saints who are faithful. The work and witness of every church depends on the faithful saints: those you know will be there whatever the weather, those who will do what they are asked. Thank God for them.
Grace and Peace
Grace was the Greek form of greeting — may the favour of the gods be upon you. Peace was the Jewish greeting — may you be in harmony. Paul takes both and says: in Christ you can have them together. The favour of God — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — and the peace that passes all understanding. And notice that he places God and Jesus on an equal plane: grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, with no distinction and no grading between them.
The Torrent of Grace: Verses 3–10
From verse 3 to verse 14 in the original Greek, the entire passage is one single sentence. No grammarian has yet been able to identify the main clause. It tumbles out like a torrent, as if Paul is so full that he cannot string his words together properly. The Holy Spirit, it seems, is no respecter of grammar.
The Key Word: ‘In’
One word occurs fourteen times in this one sentence. It is the word in. In him. In Christ. In the Beloved. As soon as you step into Christ, things begin to happen. Since he is the greater, the lesser is contained in the greater — you are actually living in Christ. In baptism, says Paul, you have put on Christ, as you put on your clothes. And living in him, a torrent of things begins to happen.
The writer is a man who feels like a millionaire. God is described as lavishing things upon us, pouring out the riches of his grace, freely bestowing blessings. Paul’s whole sentence cries out: Oh God, you have spent far too much on me.
First Blessing: Showered with Spiritual Blessings
He has blessed us with every blessing — not some, but every one. There is not a thing God owns that we will not one day inherit in Christ. Joint heirs with him: everything is coming to us.
These are spiritual blessings — which to an unbeliever causes no excitement whatever. But to those in Christ, spiritual blessings — love, joy, peace — become the things of greatest value. And they are located not in earthly places but in heavenly places, which makes them far safer. The more blessings you have in earthly places, the more you worry about them; this is where moth and rust corrupt and thieves break in. But heavenly blessings are beyond inflation, beyond loss, beyond death.
The more you learn to live in the heavenly places — seeking the things that are above, letting your mind dwell on where Christ is seated at the right hand of God — the more of those blessings you can draw on right now. You can sit on a bus and be in the heavenlies. You can do the washing up and enjoy your heavenly blessings. And you have them all now: he has already blessed us with every spiritual blessing. In title, the whole inheritance is yours today.
Second Blessing: Chosen for Holiness
When did you begin to be a Christian? From a human point of view, you might answer: in such a month, in such a year, I chose Christ as my Saviour. That is true from man’s point of view. But from God’s point of view, the answer is: before the planet Earth was made, God chose me in him.
The idea of predestination offends the unbelieving mind. He wants to make the choices, not God. But to those who have come to be in Christ, predestination becomes the most precious and lovely truth. Jesus said to his disciples: you thought you chose me? No — I chose you. And looking back, every person here who became a Christian can see how God was at work before they came to faith: tenderly drawing, arranging meetings with certain people, placing them in a certain place at a certain time. He wooed you and he won you.
But the great question is not how predestination fits with free will — you can argue about that till the cows come home. The great question is why. Why did he choose me? And the answer comes: he wanted perfect people. He chose us in him to be holy and blameless before him. He is choosing people whom he can look down on and say: there, isn’t that a perfect child? That is almost breathtaking.
Third Blessing: Destined as Sons
Why did God create human beings? Because he wanted a bigger family. He already had one Son, and he loved him so much that he called him my Beloved. But God, being love, wanted a bigger family to share things with.
There is one important difference between Christ’s sonship and ours: he was begotten; we are adopted. These are the two ways into a family. And there is something lovely about adoption: every adopted child is chosen and wanted. Other children can arrive without being wanted, but an adopted child is deliberately chosen. When God the Father has adopted you, you can be quite sure you were wanted in his family.
Love is frustrated if it has no object — no people to love, to share with. And so God wanted a bigger family. Again, you will notice: this happens in the Beloved, in the Beloved. Outside of Christ, not one word of this is true. Only in Christ do you receive the right to become a son of God and to call him Father.
Fourth Blessing: Redemption through Blood
One thing could have spoiled all the rest. One thing could have kept us from being sons of God: sin — or in the language used here, trespasses. To trespass means to climb over a fence into someone else’s property, to go where you are forbidden, to do what you have been told not to do. And every one of us has trespassed.
The most generous thing God ever did was to say: I forgive your trespasses. Can you imagine living with a holy God with unforgiven sin — carrying a guilty conscience, knowing that God knows everything you have done? But God says: I have forgiven. It was not easy for God to forgive. It was costly. It was through blood. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses. Never forget that it cost the blood of Jesus to get your trespasses forgiven.
Life Outside Christ
Consider what your life would be like outside of Christ. First, you would have no spiritual blessings in the heavenly places — which means that on the day you die, you lose everything. All your blessings are in earthly places, and not one can be taken with you. Two people talking after the death of a rich man: How much did he leave? Everything. And the person outside of Christ goes to the next world in poverty, without a single blessing to look forward to.
Second, outside of Christ you will never be perfect. You will have to live with yourself for all eternity in an imperfect state, with all your faults and all your limitations. The older we grow, the more we discover those limitations — the gap between the great person we hoped to be in youth and the reality of what we have achieved. Outside of Christ, you are confined to the frustration of an ideal you can never reach.
Third, outside of Christ you will never be a child of God — never know his family, never live in his home, never call him Father. And fourth, you will carry your guilt and shame forever. There is no forgiveness outside of Christ, and memory will bring back regret and remorse without end.
But in Christ: every spiritual blessing waiting for you, including beyond death. In Christ: the hope of becoming the ideal person you long to be in your best moments. In Christ: the knowledge that you will live forever in the family of God’s children in love. In Christ: the knowledge that your sins are taken right away and gone forever, and that you can face God with an open face.
And so the circuit of blessing is complete. God has showered us with blessings, and so we now bless God. Blessed be God who has blessed us. The cycle is complete, and now life and love flow in both directions.
God’s Ultimate Plan: Verses 9–10
The one thing man could never discover for himself is God’s plan. Through the telescope we can discover the movements of the planets, but not why they move. Through the microscope we can discover how the atom works, but not why it works. Through psychology and sociology we can discover laws of human behaviour, but not why human beings exist. Man can discover much, but he cannot discover God’s plan.
But God in his infinite wisdom has shown us the plan. He has led us tenderly into the secret. And verse 10 tells us what the plan is: a Christian universe. To unite all things in Christ — things in heaven and things on earth. God’s plan for the fullness of time is that everything will be in Christ. Nothing outside of him. What a plan. Man’s five-year plans and ten-year plans look puny beside it.
Man by himself cannot see any pattern in history. The great historian H. A. L. Fisher concluded: In history there is no plot, no rhythm, no pattern — only one emergency following another. Oscar Wilde called history a criminal calendar. But Christians say: there is a plot, there is a rhythm, there is a pattern. And it is this: all the universe is going to be Christian. As the poet put it: one far-off divine event to which the whole creation moves.
There are two things to see in every event of every year. First, God’s frustration of everything man tries to do outside Christ — every attempt at peace without Christ comes to nothing, because God will not let man achieve what only Christ can give. Second, the fulfilment of everything that is done in Christ. The significant events are not always those the news programmes highlight. The fact that more people are hearing the Gospel today than have ever heard it before — that is significant. The fact that the Bible is available in more languages than ever before — that is significant. God is calling out a people from every kindred and tribe and tongue, and history is moving towards the complete establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth in Christ.
I am not lost or bewildered by the events of any year. I am not afraid of what is coming, because I can see the plan. And God showed it to me. That is his great grace.
Closing Prayer
Oh God, we thank you for helping us to see life from your point of view. It is such a big thing — so much bigger than we dreamed. Father, we thank you that the blessings we enjoy are just part of your great plan to bring everything in the universe — out in space, everything here on earth — to unite all things in Christ. What a disunited world we are, and yet your plan is to unite all things in him. We thank you that your power is great enough to complete your plan. And so we go out into the unknown future quite certain that your kingdom is going to come, that your will will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and that one day at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord — to your glory, things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth. Hallelujah. Amen.
© David Pawson Ministry CIO
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© David Pawson Ministry — Transcript prepared for Koinonia.nu | koinonia.nu