Ephesians 2:4 - The biggest but of them all

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love [with] which He loved us..."

-But God...  That about sums it up.  The blessed but.  Life and circumstances are contrary.  Tragedy and death and evil are rearing their ugly head.  But God... Man plans a thing, life seems to be headed in a certain direction - over and over again we see that God is in control and He has a plan (which overrides all else) as well as the power which allows Him to exercise complete control.  Where we see it most is when God intervenes on behalf of His people.  They are in dire straits, something bad is about to happen to them, their outlook is bleak... But God [does something] (Genesis 8.1, 50.20; 1Samuel 23.14; Psalm 73.26; 2Corinthians 7.6).  God did something in this case as well - the biggest but of them all.  And there were two driving forces behind it - His mercy, and His love.

-Yes, God is rich in mercy, present tense, always and abundantly so.  Mercy is leniency, clemency, showing compassion or forgiveness towards someone when you have the power and authority to punish or do them harm.  Mercy lets me off the hook, and God is literally full of it.  He lets us off the hook A LOT.  His mercy is truly great (2Samuel 24.14, Psalm 119.156), infinite and inexhaustible, and it pervades all that He does (Psalm 145.9, Romans 9.15 --> cf Exodus 33.19).  He values mercy so much that He commands it of His people (Luke 6.36, 10.37), and gets seriously angry when people fail to show mercy to their fellow man (cf Jeremiah 50.42; Matthew 18.33, 23.23; James 2.13).  The manifold mercies of God turn out to be our great and ultimate motivator for serving Him (Romans 12.1).  The ark of the covenant, the symbol of God’s presence with His people, was actually covered with what was called the seat of mercy, which was to be sprinkled with the blood of the sin offering (Leviticus 16.15), and it was from above this seat of mercy that God would speak to Moses (Numbers 7.89).  God so prefers mercy, and has always gone to great lengths to reinforce this truth.  From the very beginning, He has over and over again shown that He would much rather show mercy to people (cf 2Peter 3.9) than to do them harm.  Adam and Eve?  Mercy.  They didn’t die right away.  Yes, their spirit died and God had to drive them out of paradise, but He did that so that they would not be able to eat from the tree of life and live forever separated from Him.  Driving them out was divine mercy, and before doing so He killed two of his creatures in order to make clothes for them (Genesis 3.21-24)(which perhaps is more an example of grace than mercy but the two are often intertwined with God).  To be sure, His holiness and justice must be satisfied, but do you see now how God’s infinite mercy then becomes the driving force behind sending His beloved Son to die in our place, to pay the just penalty for our transgressions thus paving the way for total forgiveness?  "Be full of mercy", Jesus said, "just as your heavenly Father is full of mercy".  Having received mercy, we are perhaps most like Him when we likewise show mercy to our fellow man.  To our kids.  To my spouse.  To the unfortunate soul who is holding up the line.  To the clever chap who just cut me off.  Mercy says it’s ok and lets it go.  Turn the other cheek.  Go the extra mile.  Not mere platitudes, these - this is God showing up in and thru my life and doing what He do.  These are the deeds of mercy.  Loving and blessing and praying for and doing good to my enemies and to those who hurt or offend or perhaps merely annoy me begins with mercy.  Letting it go.  Not exacting revenge or payback.  Mercy stays my hand and silences my tongue when my instincts drive me to want to exact justice and teach them a lesson.  Perhaps that lesson should be for them a glimpse of mercy...

-Far easier it is to show mercy to someone for whom you actually care.  The more you care about someone, the more willing and likely you are to let them off the hook.  God’s rich mercy combines with His great love in this case, His giving, no-strings-attached love being the driving force and motivation behind this mission of mercy.  For God so loved the world...  Here we get a glimpse of how deep, how wide, how great the Father’s love is for us, so vast beyond all measure.  He showed how much He loved us when He gave up His Son to be killed by those who were in fact His enemies.  But He has always loved us, even as enemies, from before we were born, before the beginning, endless, enduring, everlasting love which knows no bounds.  To truly comprehend and know what is the extent of this love - that is precisely the apex of paul’s aspiration and prayer for these believers in the next chapter (Eph 3.17-19).  So yes, I can verbally regurgitate the fact of God’s love, but have I soaked up and been saturated with a deep understanding of how truly and unfathomably great is His love for me, for my neighbor, for the world?  Does it both deepen the peace in my soul and disturb my sleep?  In this area as in so many others I have a long, long way to go...

Ephesians 2:3 - Not what God wants...

"...in whom also we all lived formerly in the desires of the our flesh, doing the wants of the flesh and the mind, and being by nature children of wrath as also the rest."

-Children of wrath - not at all what God intended.  Objects of His righteous anger, not doing what God wants but rather what I want even to the exclusion of all else, and indulgently so, so self-indulgent, giving free reign to my desires and my dying flesh and outcast mind.  Whatever those want, they get.  Enslaved am I to my desires and wants.  In other words, if I want it, I get it, eat it, do it.  And if I don’t, then I don’t.  Perhaps I am able to maintain some discipline, reign in my wants, exert a level of self-control in certain areas of life, for a season, but even then I am most likely pursuing something I want.  I am master of my domain, my wants rule, and rarely if ever would I - on my own - land on wanting with pure motives something which God might actually want.  This is the way we were, the way we all lived at one time, including those of us who are now in the company of those who are following Christ.  Paul even includes himself.  We were all in the same boat, enemies of God, unable to please Him or make peace, unwittingly (for most) incurring His displeasure and His anger and doomed to eternal destruction.  

-The wrath of God is not some figment of a deranged imagination.  No fantastic concoction of primitive, unenlightened minds, this.  Neither is it consigned to the allegedly-backward less-evolved theology of the Old Testament.  Jesus talked about it (Matthew 7.13; Mark 9.43-48; Luke 12.5; John 3.36, 15.6), the New Testament authors wrote about it (Romans 1.18, 2.5; 2Thessalonians 1.9; Colossians 3.6; Hebrews 10.27; 2Peter 3.7; Jude 7; Revelation 20.10, 20.15, 21.8).  It is the real deal, revealed from heaven against all the deeds and ways of man which fall short of God's standard of perfection.  Yes, it is real, frighteningly so, it is eternal, it is horrific, and it is to be avoided at all costs if at all possible.  And no, this is not at all how God designed it, not ever what He wanted or intended.  Which is why He did something about it...

Ephesians 2:2 - The cult of the dead

"...in which formerly you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the authority of the air, the spirit the [one] now working in the sons of disobedience..."

-Everybody’s doing it (and so were you).  Not simply an excuse or justification for making bad choices, it is in this case universally true, a sad indictment of the sons of Adam.  The great and terrible parade of humanity, this - blindly goose-stepping their way towards the precipice of an eternity separated from their surpassingly glorious and awesome Creator, spurred on and led by the deceiver himself, the father of lies, who was a liar from the beginning.  Questioning and challenging God and His Word and what He wants, choosing to do what I want instead, testing and failing God in my mind and subsequently given over to a mind that fails the test, falling short and missing out on glory at every turn.  I am lost, but I don’t even realize it because I am in such good company, everyone around me heading in the same direction, a rushing river of lost souls coursing its way in the wrong direction, away from God, just as deceived and lost as I am.  And therein lies the pernicous power of the lie.  When I am wounded or burgled or otherwise overtly transgressed against, I know it, but when I am deceived, I do not.  Thus I am lost, I am deceived, surrounded by a host of other souls blindly wandering about in similar straits.  It has all the earmarks of a cult, actually, an entire system designed to pull the wool over our eyes and to keep us there, trapped, enslaved to sin, born into disobedience and unable to avoid it, dead and dying, helpless and hopeless or with false hope at best.  And I truly am helpless - unable to help myself at all - when I am dead...  I need rescuing.  Read on...

Ephesians 2:1 - A deadly empty existence

"And you, being dead in your trespasses and sins..."

-We go from God's plan A - life at its fullest - to death.  That which is left after life has left.  Still a kind of existence, this, sad and tragic, a far far cry from the way we were meant to live as image bearers of the Divine.  

-Cause of death?  Sin.  Falling short, missing the mark.  We were born into sin, freely choosing to live life apart from our Creator, hiding from Him, willingly choosing to put me first and do what I want rather than what He wants.  Sins of commission, sins of omission, adding up, so many choices to disobey in fact, and yet just one would suffice.  And it did.  The first parents chose to disobey and their offspring do the exact same thing, born to sin as sparks fly upward.  Me first.  Mine.  No need to be taught or instructed in the ways of sin - we emerge from the womb with the me-first-mine instinct fully developed. Yes, we are all born this way now, unable to not sin, our native impulse to transgress, to get right up to the line and step right over, doing precisely what we are told not to do, to reach for forbidden fruit.  This deadly empty existence is one of separation from the true Life-Giver-and-Life-Filler, separation from life at its fullest, separated unto death, which had we continued in this separation would have become permanent, eternal death and destruction apart from the Source of life and goodness and joy and peace and beauty.  Oh, what terrible and dire straits we were in...

Ephesians 1:23 - God's plan A

"...which is the body of Him, the fullness of the [One] the all in all filling."

-Christ is indeed over all things, and that includes those who have trusted in Him for salvation.  In fact, Paul says He is the Head of the Church, the gathered global Assembly of the people of God, which is the Body of Christ, and He is in charge.  He is in control.  He sets direction and make the decisions.

-This Body is the fullness of this One Who fills up all things with all things.  In other words, this Body is the ultimate expression of what God’s filling up looks like.  You could say that were you able to completely remove the presence and activity of God, His goodness, His sustaining and upholding power, His grace and provision, you would be left with nothing.  Disorder and chaos would ensue, randomness, anarchy, evil, and ultimately death and destruction, as the very particles of matter themselves would fly apart.  But in all the created universe, we find in this Body of Christ the finest and fullest expression of what it looks like for God to completely fill to overflowing, His presence, His goodness, His power and love, His peace and joy.  This is the pinnacle of God’s creation, men and women fully surrendered and freely choosing to love Him with all their hearts and to love one another and their neighbors with all the love of God, come what may, laying down their interests and their lives for others, even unto death.  This is life at its fullest, life as it was always intended to be.  This was His plan from the beginning.

-Another way of looking at this metaphor of the Assembly of believers being the body of Christ is that they become the primary means of locomoting His life to the ends of the earth, of disseminating the blessings of God to the nations.  this living, moving, breathing spiritual mass are the hands and feet of Jesus to men, women, and children everywhere, guided and animated by Him Who is the Head.  The Church is God's plan A for bringing the peoples of the earth into contact with His glory, into the white-hot enjoyment of His breathtaking greatness and goodness.  When He declares that all the earth will be filled with His glory (Numbers 14.21) - this is how He intends to do it, as God is most glorified when His people are finding their highest satisfaction in Him, in all things, whatever they do, wherever they go (1Corinthians 10.31).

Ephesians 1:22 - No silver medals

"...and He subjected everything under the feet of Him, and Him He gave [as] Head above all the assembly..."

-This verse must be taken in connection to the previous one, as it is connected with an ‘and’.  So in exalting Jesus to His right hand in the highest heaven, God the Father put all things under His feet.  This is a metaphor for submission, specifically of triumph over enemies.  In this instance, the list of enemies includes all those in spiritual rebellion against Almighty God, as well as death as an active (anti)life force.  What we are talking about is total victory, the ultimate vanquishing, and there is only one Person on that victory stand - no points for second place, no silver medal of any kind.  And what enemies exist are not only defeated, they are destroyed (or are destined to be).  

-God's Son is now the realization of the perfect God-Man, finally and fully in charge (or soon to be) of the entirety of creation (cf Psalm 110.1, 8.6).  Man was originally intended to be in charge over creation, but that position he abrogated when man chose to disobey his Creator.  For Jesus’ part, we do see that as of yet not everything is completely subjected to Him.  People still live in rebellion against Him.  stuff still breaks down, and death is still has operational control.  But a day is coming and soon will be, when every knee will bow before Jesus and confess Him as Lord (Philippians 2.9-11), and death will once and for all be cast out of existence (Revelation 20.4).  What a day of rejoicing THAT will be, right?

Ephesians 1:21 - The Name

"...far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name being named, not only in the this age but rather also in the [one] coming."

-Not only did God exert miraculous power in raising Jesus out of the dead, but He exalted Him [back] to glory. In Jesus He (re)established and inaugurated a new level of unrivaled authority.  Jesus ascended to heaven and sat right down at His Father’s right hand, the right hand of Power, forever reigning co-equal with God the Father.  Now and forever, that’s what Paul says.  There is no power on heaven or earth or anywhere in the universe, no angelic being, no force of nature, no ruler, no empire or majesty or nation or alliance of nations even that can or will ever come close to comparing with the power and authority which resides in Jesus now and forever.  He is the King of all kings and Lord of all lords (cf Revelation 19.6).  demons tremble and flee at the mere mention of His Name (Luke 10.17, Acts 16.18).  His Name brings life and hope and healing and forgiveness to the nations (Matthew 12.21; John 1.12, 16.23, 20.31; Acts 3.6, 4.30; 1John 5.13).  In fact there is no name which has or will ever rival His, no better name, no other name ever by which we can be saved or at which every knee will bow (Acts 4.12, Philippians 2.9-10).  We can bow now of our own free will (cf Colossians 3.17), in this present age, or we will have no choice but to bow in the next (Revelation 11.18, 15.4), where we will be held accountable for how we in fact disrespected and hated His Name in this life (cf Matthew 10.22, James 2.7), for every last vestige of rebellion and godlessness.  Wisdom would point to choosing door number one...