Ephesians 1:13 - The Plan

"...in Whom also you all having heard the Word of truth, the Good Message of your salvation, in Whom also having trusted you were sealed in the Holy Spirit of promise..."

-And now others are joining in the chorus.  Those who first believed, including Paul, had been faithful to spread the truth of God’s grace and goodness and of His Plan of salvation through Jesus Christ.  They eventually began to boldly spread it beyond the cultural confines of the dispersed nation of Israel to other nations, and others, including the ones in this assembly in Ephesus, have trusted in their word, in this Good Message of Christ.  And this is our part.  God has done the heavy lifting, and we respond by believing the Message.  He does not force us at this point - it is our choice whether to believe and trust in Christ or continue in some form of disbelief, perhaps trusting in our own works to make us acceptable to God, or to deny the truth of the Message, or to deny His existence altogether.  Our part is to first believe, and then to speak.  Do not miss the fact that if those who first believed had kept the Message to themselves, there would be no subsequent letters to assemblies of believers in Ephesus (or Philippi or anywhere else).  There would be no epistles, no Gospels, no New Testament - no Word whatsoever for the rest of us to hear and believe.  Obviously God would not have been so constrained by any such non-compliance with His Plan (Christ's last directive was to make disciples of all nations), but His Plan has always included His blessings being borne on the backs and lips of His people unto every nation and to the ends of earth.

-These others who have believed were all also sealed with the Holy Spirit.  And all they did was believe - there was no subsequent asking or some level of faith or piety to be attained.  They believed, and when they did God sealed them in Christ with His Holy Spirit.  The word refers to closing something up for security, possibly with an authenticating mark (cf Matthew 27.66, Revelation 20.3), and here it is in the aorist tense which means it has definitely happened already.  All those who trust in Christ are sealed with the Spirit, they are locked in for life, secure, and are marked out.  The presence and power of God’s Spirit in the life of a disciple of Christ is a distinguishing mark for all to see, AND it is also an integral part of the Plan.  This Spirit Who locks in is the same One Who gives God's people the power (and the words) with which to carry out the Plan (Acts 1.8).

-And this sealing is actually the fulfillment of a promise which God had made long before Paul wrote this letter and which was reiterated by His Son (cf Acts 2.33, John 7.37-39, Joel 2.28, Isaiah 44.3).  Not a new Plan, this, just new to the ears of a lost broken and dying world.  It is news, Good News.  Hope for the hopeless.  Peace and forgiveness.  And we are the News-casters... 

-Thus we have the Plan in a nutshell - saved, sealed, and spreading it to others.

Ephesians 1:12 - The march of history

"...unto us to being unto the praise of His glory, the [ones] having been first to hope in Christ..."

-Some suggest that Paul here in these next few verses slips into distinguishing between Gentiles and Jews and that here in verse 12 Paul is refering to Jews who had believed in Christ, those who first heard the Gospel in Jerusalem before the Message got out to the Gentiles and who were part of the extended people who are described throughout the OT as God’s lot, His portion and inheritance (Deuteronomy 32.9, Jeremiah 10.16).  So some would say that in this verse he is delineating between the two ethnic groups just as he does in Ephesians 2.11 and 3.1.  There is no doubt that Paul makes that distinction in this letter and elsewhere (and he specifically states in Romans 1.16 that the Jews were first).  The only problem is that we know that this assembly in Ephesus was initially launched in the synagogue and consisted of both Jewish and Gentile believers (Acts 19.10).  It doesn’t make sense for him to be characterizing the entire assembly in Ephesus as exclusively a Gentile one.

-Alternatively then, whether Paul is perhaps referring to the band of apostles, or to a more inclusive-but-indistinct group of early believers (which I believe is more likely) is actually of little importance.  His salient point is that the outcome of what God has done in all He has done is that there is an expanding group of people who have turned from trusting in themselves (their own works) in order to make themselves right with God, to trusting in God’s Messiah (in Christ’s work on the Cross), in His true provision for their sin.  They are true worshippers who are now and will forever be celebrating (and spreading the knowledge of) God's breathtaking goodness, praising His glory.  They have been caught up into and have joined the great chorus of praise declaring the excellencies of the One Who has in His wisdom and grand plan orchestrated all the events of history to culminate in the sacrifice of His Son once for all so that those who believe in Him can indeed be forgiven and brought into His forever family.  The entire march of history has played out exactly as He wanted.  No missteps, no mistakes, no hanging chads or extraneous details, everything just as He desired.  Praise indeed be to God for His glory and grace...

Ephesians 1:11 - Bequeathing Glory...

"...in Whom also we were apportioned, having been predestined according to purpose of the [One] the all [things] working according to counsel of His desire..."

-God has assigned someone or something as a lot, a portion, an inheritance, but there is some question as to what and to whom.  In the next few verses Paul suddenly is referring to two groups, we and you.  It could be Jews and Gentiles, or it could be first believers and these later believers, or it could even possibly be the apostolic band of ministers and the those who have later believed as a result of their ministry.  Some maintain that the distinction begins in this verse, but I think it makes more sense to hold off on the distinction until the next verse.  This verse continuies the train of thought begun in verse 3, about how God has abundantly blessed us.  If however the distinction in these next verses is between Jews and Gentiles, you could properly include this verse with the next ones and conclude that the inheritance to which Paul refers here is actually God’s people and the recipient is God Himself.  Just as Israel was God’s inheritance, Jewish believers have been assigned as God’s true inheritance and portion in Christ.  Thus Paul would not be talking about God’s people receiving an inheritance - they would BE the inheritance.

-But if Paul is in this verse simply continuing what he began in verse 3, then here he builds on the truth that we who believe have been predestined to be adopted as God’s sons, and sons are heirs.  They get a share, a portion of the estate, they get a share of all the Father’s stuff - everything He has is theirs, in fact (Luke 15.31).  In this case we’re talking about a spiritual kingdom, an eternal one, one not of this world - so our inheritance likewise is not of this world.  But it is past tense - it has already been assigned to us in Christ.  Yes, it is in Him - there is no share in this inheritance apart from Christ.  But this is definitely something that God did - and He wanted to do it.  He wanted you and me to be His heirs, and so Paul tells us again that God locked this in.  He predestined us to be His heirs.  

-And what is this inheritance exactly?  I believe what we have inherited is every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, we've been bequeathed glory, breathtaking goodness - first and foremost the God of glory Himself.  He is our portion, He is our lot - we get small sips of glory in this life, to be followed by one unending breathtaking draught of His goodness in eternity.

-And this from God, Who works and is working all things according to the counsel of His theléma, His desire.  He has an end game in mind, and it is all gonna be exactly what He wants, all good.

Ephesians 1:10 - ALL things in Christ

"...unto [the] management of the fullness of the times, to sum up the all [things] in Christ, the [things] upon the heavens and the [things] upon the earth in Him..."

-Time is in the hands of our Creator God.  Not just the Grand Watchmaker, winding up time and letting it go, He manages and pours out the moments and seasons and epochs like so much time in a bottle, and that bottle is gradually fillling up.  One day soon, before we know it, time will be up, the bottle will be finally full, and that will be the end of time as we know it.  There will be no more time, for anything, only for all to be judged on how they related to His Son, Jesus Christ, and then time for the great eternal party in heaven which will be bound by no clock whatsoever.  Timeless.

-ALL things will be summed up in Christ.  Each person’s thoughts and words and deeds and motives, everything about them will be added up, and, simply put, if Christ is in the equation, you pass.  If He is not, you shall not pass.  If Christ is not in your life, if you never trusted in Him and remained separated from God in this life, you will continue separated from God in the next.  What is at stake here is beyond calculating, in fact, as that next life has two possibilities, extreme polar opposites, one which is indescribably glorious and the other so grave as to be avoided at all costs (and actually the cost was already paid by Christ - which is exactly why He needs to be in our equation to begin with).

-Beyond this we are talking about ALL things in Christ.  Everything, not one thing will be excepted, whether it is something on earth, or something in the heavenly realm, all things will ultimately be subjected to Him and viewed in how they relate to Him.  He is the Way, the Truth, the Life.  He is Messiah, the Chosen One, the Beginning and the End.  It has always been going to be all about Jesus, even from before the very beginning, which is exactly why if I aspire to name the Name of Jesus and be found in Him I must be learning to always and increasingly be all about Jesus.  He must increase, I must decrease, more of Him and less of me.  More of Him in me and more of me in Him.  More of my stuff and my wants and my time and my free time and my pasttimes and my dreams surrendered and caught up and found in Him.  which I actually find is the better (and best) place to be after all, as my deep-seated wants and needs spawned by the infinite spiritual abyss will never be filled apart from my Creator - all things in Christ is that for which I was designed from before the beginning, life as it was always meant to be lived....

-To quote CS Lewis: “Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.”

And to be sure, that "something else" is Christ...

Ephesians 1:8-9 - Removing the veil...

"...in all wisdom and insight, having known to us the mystery of His desire, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him..."

-Paul returns to this idea of what God wants, and tells us that God in fact has a grand plan which will bring Him great pleasure.  Some translations seem to want to present our heavenly Father as being devoid of all emotion whatsoever - they mention the plan but not the pleasure.  Nevertheless, while it is a mystery to some, this matter of what God is up to, of what He wants, it is no longer a mystery to those He has brought into His family, to those who have received His offer of forgiveness and redemption through Christ.  In fact He has given us all wisdom and insight, all that we need in order to know what He is up to, this great plan that is in fact exaxctly what He wants and is indeed going to bring Him much pleasure.

-Sadly to the ones outside of Christ the things of God are a mystery, so hard to understand or so much foolishness, making no sense whatsoever.  God and His ways are veiled in a mist, strange and mysterious to those who are estranged from Him.  You can hear it when they talk about Him and whenever they may try to talk to Him.  But He so wants each of us to know Him, to come to Him and get to know Him personally, to learn what He wants, what does give Him pleasure.  It grieves Him, how folks give Him the Heisman, keeping Him at bay, at arm’s length, too busy or distracted or enamored with the baubles and trinkets and stuff of this life.  But when we come home to Him in our heart, to the place He Himself designed us to be, suddenly the veil is removed and we begin to know Him just as He fully knows us.  Suddenly He really is our Daddy in heaven, and we can relate to Him personally, and we get it, His grand eternal plan now begins to make total sense to us.  We may not ultimately understand every facet and nuance, but we get the big picture.  This is actually a big part of the plan - in the end doesn’t every daddy get great pleasure when his children come home, when they begin to pursue His heart and begin to value and desire the same things that He does?  And Paul unpacks this in greater detail in the next verse...

Ephesians 1:7 - Just a heartbeat away...

"...in Whom we are having the redemption through the His blood, the forgiveness of the trespasses, according to the riches of His grace...(which He abounded unto us)..."

-Redemption.  Release.  To be set free from some kind of bondage or enslavement.  And to be sure, we were in bondage to both sin and death, unable to escape either on our own.  We were born to die and born into sin as surely as sparks fly upward, the common destiny and shared predicament of fallen man, originally designed to live forever in paradise, but now no more than a vapor, just a few fleeting years and then back to dust.  Death gradually and relentlessly consumes every man.  And while he lives - unable to not sin, completely unable to avoid rebelling against his Creator, freely choosing to do so at every turn.  Separated from the God Who loves him and doomed to pay the penalty for his sins - his lot is indeed hopeless.  Which is why the Good News is so good!  Freedom is just a heartbeat away...!  Freedom from sin and death, from separation and condemnation.  It was secured in that one final heartbeat of the Savior Whose blood poured out and Who in that final breath declared, ‘It is finished’.  It is a heartbeat away for each one of us, who can in that very second pass from eternal death into eternal freedom simply by trusting in what Christ did on the Cross.  Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty...

-Through His blood.  God had a plan, a plan to expiate sin, to fully pay for it and completely remove it, this great spiritual Berlin Wall which separated man from his Maker since that fateful day in paradise many eons ago.  The foundational truth about sin is that there is no forgiveness for it without the shedding of blood.  That would be the great price of our freedom from the penalty and power of sin.  And to prepare His people for the day when He would provide the payment for sin, He gave us pictures.  Like when He killed an animal, shedding its blood, to clothe Adam and Eve after their tragic choice to commence disobedience.  Or when He asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son but then provided a ram to take his place.  Or when He instituted the covenant with Moses where His people every year would kill an unblemished lamb whose blood would symbolically cover their sins for one year.  All just pictures, these - precursers to the Lamb of God, the perfect Son of God Who was both fully man and fully God and Whose perfect, precious blood bled out to cover all the multiplied sins of mankind.  Do not rush past this monumental truth like a hurried sip of grape juice rushing past the lips on a sunday morning.  Oh how amazing, that crimson flood, the blood which so freely flowed out of that beating heart for me - yes, how can it be, that You, My God, should die for me?

-Forgiveness of trespasses.  Gone.  Simply gone.  They have been sent away as far as the east is from the west, David tells us (Ps 103.12).  In other words, my sins are completely gone, never to return.  Every single one of them, past present and future.  That horrible thing I did?  Gone.  All of them.  That really big thing I haven’t even done yet?  It’s gone too.  That is forgiveness.  There is no memory of them whatsoever.  They are buried in the deepest ocean, never again to surface.  If they are not gone, they are not forgiven.  But the God-Who-sees and Who saw all I ever would and would not do long before He ever sent His Son to shed His blood to cover my sins, now no longer sees even the faintest trace of imperfection in me.  Every last one - gone.  Forever.  I need to let them go too...  Let go of the guilt, the shame, that feeling of being dirty in God’s eyes or unworthy of His love.  In truth, I deserve not one drop of Christ’s blood, and yet I was worth so much to God that He did send His only Son for me.  And now I am free.  Clean.  Completely forgiven in Christ.  Yes - mind blown once again.

-And all this, according to the riches of His grace.  Just how rich is God’s grace?  How much of it does He possess?  How much has He put at our disposal in order to wash our sins whiter that snow and completely erase every last one of our trespasses?  Vast riches, untold and unimaginable, an inexhaustible supply, neverending, overflowing and flowing freely from the veins of Calvary.  Way more than enough to provide forgiveness and freedom for a few billion souls.  Paul says God lavished His grace on us, He abounded and overflowed it onto us - He covered us over and slathered it on extra thick and gave us way more than we would ever need.  We’re swimming in grace, and it’s way over our heads.  All this grace poured out for us, and the level hasn’t even dipped a bit...!  How much grace might you or I need today?  There’s still an infinite supply to cover anything and everything we need, and then some...

Ephesians 1:6 - The Almighty Why, Part 1

-’...unto the praise of the glory of His grace which He graciously gave us in the [One] having been beloved.’

-Here is the why, the why behind why our Heavenly Father adopted us, and the ultimate why behind why Almighty God ultimately does all that He does.  Paul will refer to this why again in verse 12 and we will come back to it there, but here Paul is seizing on one facet of God’s glory, and that is His grace.

-Grace.  Wonderful, amazing grace.  Marvelous.  Matchless.  Glorious.  Breathtakingly good.  How sweet that word does sound to those who have received it.  Grace goes where no man can tread, where you would least expect, going after the despised and the wretched, the least and the rejected, to the helpless and the hopeless and the least of these, to all those who have no hope of rescuing themselves.  Which happens to include pretty much everyone who is honest and humble enough to admit it.  God’s great favor, so rich, so free, undeserved and unearned - the sublime supreme game-changer, this.  No longer must I labor for a lifetime (or even one day!) to curry favor with the Divine.  Never again need I work to try and gain right standing before my Maker.  Grace does what I cannot do, what I can never hope to do even on my best day.  Grace reaches down and rescues me from the most dire of straits.  Grace is the Heavenly Father reaching down towards the struggling child - and a disobedient one at that - and saying, ‘Here, I got this.’  Grace provides and secures our salvation and gives us our daily bread.  We receive no dash of favor or blessing of His that we ever deserve - it is all by grace, and one day, when I stand faultless before the throne, holy and blameless face-to-face with my Maker, the One thrice-holy, it will be abundantly clear to all that only by the grace of God am I there.  And then the chorus of praise, the cheers will erupt!  (or rather continue, as those have been going on for quite some time now...)  Cheers not for me, of course, but for the glorious grace of God.

-And to be sure, this saving grace is found only in the Beloved, God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, Whom He loves and Whom He sent into the world to save the world, to save sinners, to save a wretch like me...  And for those who choke on calling themselves a wretch, if that word gets stuck in throat of your soul like some horrid oversized pill, it probably means you are sadly in no place to receive this grace.  Which means you are on your own, and good luck with that, cuz really, apart from grace life is just a grim game of roulette, and the house always wins... (no need to play by house rules, tho - God has rigged the results in our favor in the Beloved!)