Ephesians Chapter 1

We’re studying Ephesians during the fall semester at church in our ABFs. (Adult Bible Fellowships. Basically is the Lake Pointe version of Sunday School.) I got a commentary on Paul’s prison letters that has some great stuff in it that I wanted to share. My direct quotes are from “Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters” by Tom Wright.

“Most of Paul’s letters start, after the initial greeting, by telling the church what he’s praying for when he thinks of them. He will come to that later on in this first chapter. But pride of place in the opening of this letter goes to a long and quite formal prayer of thanks and praise to God. This opening prayer lasts, in fact, from verse 3 all the way to verse 14. Though we can break it up into quite short sentences it is really a continuous stream of worship, and we should think of it like that. Before Paul will even come to a report of his specific prayers, he establishes what is after all the appropriate context for all Christian prayer, reflection and exhortation: the worship and adoration of the God who has lavished his love upon us. The entire prayer, all eleven verses of it, is woven through and through with the story of what God has done in Jesus the Messiah. He has blessed us in the king; he chose us in him, foreordained us through him, poured grace on us in him, gave us redemption in him, set out his plan in him, intending to sum up everything in him. We have obtained our inheritance in him, because we have set our hope on him and have been sealed in him with the spirit as the guarantee of what is to come.”

Then it starts to get tricky. Paul has to go and use phrases like “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world” and “In love He predestined us to adoption as sons” and “also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose.” Why is this so complicated? It’s because we have to reconcile what appear to be conflicting viewpoints. Growing up, I heard a lot about free will and about how God doesn’t force us to accept Him almost to the exclusion of biblical ideas based on passages like this of God’s sovereignty and His choosing us. So there are a few things we have to consider here. First of all, throughout scripture, it’s clear that there is some element of human freewill involved in saving faith in Christ. We are free to accept or reject Him. But we can’t ignore passages that talk of God’s choosing us. (Read Deuteronomy 4:2 – You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.”) So we must understand that both are involved in our salvation: God chose us and we chose God. How the two align exactly, I don’t know. And I don’t think God intends for us to know. Because it ultimately doesn’t matter. That’s not information that we need to know. Besides, I don’t think that’s the issue that Paul is addressing here. What he wants us to understand is that “we aren’t chosen for our own sake, but for the sake of what God wants to accomplish through us.”

A few more thoughts:
“Power is one of the great themes of Ephesians. For Paul, the greatest display of power the world had ever seen took place when God raised Jesus from the dead. And at the centre of Paul’s prayer for the church in the area, which he now reports, is his longing that they will come to realize that this same power, the power seen at Easter and now vested in Jesus, is available to them for their daily use. Paul doesn’t imagine that all Christians will automatically be able to recognize the power of God. Many of the things which God’s power achieves in us, such as putting secret sins to death and becoming people of prayer, remain hidden from the world and even, sometimes, from other Christians.”

Let’s switch to a different commentary for a few last thoughts. This one is called “Ephesians(MacArther New Testament Commentary)” by John MacArthur, Jr.

“But from letters, as well as through personal reports from friends who visited him in prison, [Paul] had received considerable information from and about the churches. He heard two things that indicated the genuineness of their salvation, and for those two cardinal marks of a true Christian – faith in Christ and love for other Christians – he affectionately praises them. Those two dimensions of spiritual life are inseparable. The New Testament does not separate Jesus as Savior from Jesus as Lord. He is both, or He is neither. Jesus becomes Savior when He is accepted as Lord. Granted, no person receives Jesus Christ with a full understanding of all He is or all He requires as Lord of those He saves. Many Christians come to Christ with only the barest idea of His sovereign deity or of what it means to belong to and submit to Him. But they are willing to submit, to give up all they are and have, and to leave all and follow Him. Once they have come to Him, some Christians lose their first love for Him as Savior and resist obeying Him as Lord. But their lovelessness makes Him no less Savior, and their resistance makes Him no less Lord. Christ is not accepted in parts, first as Savior and later as Lord. Jesus the Savior is Jesus the Lord, and Jesus the Lord is Jesus the Savior, He does not exist in parts or relate to believers in parts. Awareness, appreciation, and obedience of Him as Savior and Lord change. When we are faithful to Him those things increase and when we are unfaithful they diminish. But the fact of Jesus’ lordship begins the same moment He becomes Savior, and neither His lordship nor His Saviorhood changes for believers from that time through all eternity.”

That’s sort of a strange thought, isn’t it? Even when I give in to the temptation of sin, even when I am involved in outright, willful disobedience, Christ is still my Lord. He never walks away and says “Fine. You don’t want to be a part of Me? Have it your way.” That would seem as if I might be spared discipline or judgment if He let me “unpick” Him. But He doesn’t. He will always deal with me with the authority of my Lord and Master. That sort of changes my perspective on things a bit. Christ said, “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” I can’t even snatch myself out of the Father’s hand. Which is comforting, and scary, and convicting all at the same time.