Summary of Ephesians 1
Paul begins his exposition of this subversive counter-revolution of God where everything Christian always begins – grace. Paul’s emphasis on grace and the equipping we receive through this grace in ch.1 I would summarize like this: All of God through all of time and space (and beyond) uses all his power to bestow all his grace to all creation and all spiritual blessing to all his people thus achieving all his purposes.
This summary captures something of the breath-taking expansiveness of God’s purposes and the astonishing abundance and care with which he equips his creatures to do his will and to live in the “mystery” of his gracious plan.
God’s counter-revolutionary people need to internalize all of this in profound ways before they can serve him effectively. Thus as we are “seated”[1] (2:6), the chief metaphor or this section of Ephesians, with the victorious Christ we use our enlightened heart-eyes to take in the massive vision and grace God has for and has given to his counter-revolutionary people. The first thing needed to build a movement is “white-hot faith”.[2] A captivating vision and a captive heart fuel such faith. When human need is grasped in light of God’s vision for his people and his world, and we - body, soul, and spirit – are grasped – broken and made new - in God’s grace, then a subversive counter-revolutionary movement of people ready to live God’s way and model and implement the way of God’s new creation is ready to launch.
The mystery of God’s gracious plan is just such a captivating vision. And since this mystery entails at its core a living and growing relationship with the triune God, it creates followers whose hearts are captive to this God as well as to his vision.
A few years back the buzz word in business was “BHAG”.
Companies were encouraged to set “Big, Hairy, Audacious, Goals” for themselves. Thus challenged, the workers would be motivated around these BHAG’s to work harder to reach these greater goals. I suggest that in Ephesians 1 God sets forth just such a BHAG for his people, the Biggest, Hairy-ist, most Audacious Goal ever. And Paul presents this God as the Biggest, Hairy-ist, most Audacious God ever in calling and equipping his people for this astonishing work!
Companies were encouraged to set “Big, Hairy, Audacious, Goals” for themselves. Thus challenged, the workers would be motivated around these BHAG’s to work harder to reach these greater goals. I suggest that in Ephesians 1 God sets forth just such a BHAG for his people, the Biggest, Hairy-ist, most Audacious Goal ever. And Paul presents this God as the Biggest, Hairy-ist, most Audacious God ever in calling and equipping his people for this astonishing work!
One Long Sentence
Eph.1 breaks into two parts: vv.3-14 and vv.15-23. The former passage is the focus of this chapter.
This first part, vv.3-14, is only one sentence in the original Greek (the longest in the New Testament)! My New Revised Standard uses six sentences to translate it into good English. Paul seems to get so caught up in the glory of what he is talking about that his mind outraces his pen and he just keeps adding one clause after another to try and capture the marvel of the gracious plan and provision of God. There is no other sentence quite like it in the Bible.
In this one long sentence Paul spans eternity past to eternity future in re-telling the story of the world in the story of Israel, God’s Old Testament subversive counter-revolutionary people. He locates the church, God’s New Testament Jewish-Gentile counter-revolutionary people in its position in this unfolding story which he parses as the work of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Paul provides three “break” points in this sentence with the phrase “to the praise of his glory” (or slight variants) in vv.6, 12, 14.
“Us” and “Them”
For these largely Gentile churches Paul begins with a typically Jewish form of praise. He doesn’t do this in his other letters. Why here? In part, because this is where the story starts, with God, and Paul is trying to give these churches the “big picture” of God’s plan and purpose for us and our world. And in part, to remind his readers that even though the church had become largely Gentile, the Gentiles owed everything they have received to the Jews and the God who chose to work through them. A un-repayable debt is owed to the Jews; even now Paul in Romans reminds us that we Gentiles are but wild branches somehow grafted into the root of the olive tree of Israel by God (Rom.11:17ff.) and that in the end “all Israel will be saved” (11:26). Whatever that means, it at least means that God honors Israel’s priority in the outworking of his purposes and is not finished in his work with them. Thus there is no reason, no reason at all, for any anti-Jewish sentiment or diminishment of their status or importance in the church. Indeed, we owe them honor, respect, and indeed, our very lives!
Paul starts, then, sketching God’s plan to use Israel, Abraham and Sarah’s family, to bless them, and through them bless everyone else. We can follow the unfolding of this sketch if we pay attention to the pronouns Paul uses. He begins with “our” (v.3), “us” (v.3), and “we” (v.7) and these pronouns run from v.3-12. Only then does he shift to “you” (v.13). And in v.14 we have “our” again, now inclusive of “us” and “you” as “God’s own people” (v.14)!
The “us” language refers to the Jewish Christians in the church, heirs of God’s promises and purposes to use Israel as his people in redeeming the world. All that Paul writes through v.12 highlights their priority in the outworking of God’s purpose. Remember Paul’s missionary practice of “to the Jews first, then to the Gentiles”! In v.13 the “you” (which is us Gentiles!) comes into play. Through faith in the gospel and the sealing of the Spirit, however, the “us” (Jewish Christians) and “you” (Gentile believers) become together the “our” of v.14 – this integrated group of believers has now become the new people of God. This is a crucial point that anticipates Paul’s fuller discussion of Jewish-Gentile harmony as the chief mark of Christ’s work on the cross (2:11-22).
Everything Paul writes in this first section of his letter is thus true of all believers. But historically and theologically Jewish Christians have a certain priority (though not a special privilege) that we must recognize. We Gentiles have been accepted into their family as God’s chosen people. The church, as a unity of Jews and Gentiles (which incorporates every other ethnic and social division in our world), is the people God always intended to have and now, in and through Christ, does have!
The Character and Work of the Triune God (vv.3, 5, 9)
Paul gives us three crucial marks of the character and work of the triune God in this one long sentence.
-God “blesses” (v.3);
-God “predestines” (v.5); and
-God “makes known” (v.9).
Imagine you are part of God’s subversive counter-revolutionary movement. What would you most need from your leader - equipment, reassurance, and strategy. And that is just what Paul describes God doing for his people. His “blessing” equips us with everything we need for living God’s way. His “predestining”[3] reassures us that God’s way will prevail. And his “making known” enables us to align ourselves with the strategy God is pursuing to implement the victory of Christ throughout all creation. Equipping, reassuring, and strategizing – Paul wants his fellow counter-revolutionaries to know that God is doing all this for all of them all the time in all situations!
Paul’s Threefold Refrain (vv.6, 12, 14)
As we noted earlier, in this long sentence with its seeming endless cascading of phrases and ideas Paul has given us three break points by use of slight variations of the refrain “to the praise of his glory” (vv.6, 12, 14). This phrase, I think, is something like a battle-cry for the people of God (sort of like “Remember the Alamo!). All the triune God has done, is doing, and will do is “to the praise of his glory.” God’s “glory” (meaning his presence) was the ultimate goal for his creation. Rebellious humanity “stole” that glory, as it were, for itself, thus installing itself as “gods” over our lives and world. God’s counter-revolution is aimed at recovering this true divine “glory” for his creatures and his creation.
This emphasis on God’s glory might seem a little unseemly and narcissistic. It is when humans so seek their own glory. And in the history of religion there have been not a few deities who selfishly and narcissistically sought their own glory. Israel’s God, however, is different. Here is a place where it is crucial that we keep in mind the triune God when we speak of God. For this God, his very life is a sharing and receiving of love between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit from all eternity. Being such a God, his intent in creation was to share his life, this eternal three-way fellowship of communication, communion, and community, with his creatures. It is this sharing, this love, that constitutes God’s “glory”. We know God is present (= ”glory”) when this love is active in us and through us. Thus, when this God seeks his “glory” (his way of being present with his creatures and his creation) it is not at the expense of those creatures but rather consists in their being lifted up to share in God’s own eternal life of love! The Church Father Irenaeus gave classic expression to this dynamic, reciprocal view of God’s glory in the 2nd century: “For the glory of God is humanity fully alive, and life consists in beholding God.”[4] Paul shares this conviction, indeed, is one of its sources for Irenaeus, and this statement stands as an admirable expression of what Paul in Ephesians 3:11 calls God’s “eternal purpose”.
We’ll use this threefold refrain to break this long sentence into three parts for comment: vv.3-6, 7-12, 13-14.
[1] the passive tense means that we don’t seat ourselves, God does. Again, this is grace at work doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves.)
[2] Steve Addison, Movements That Change the World: Five Keys to Spreading the Gospel (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2011), 36ff.
[3] Not to be confused with “pre-scripting” everything. That is fatalism, an idea from Greek philosophy that won’t go away and is regularly confused with biblical ideas of predestination, foreordination, and election. Expressions like “What will be will be” and “When your number’s up, that’s it” or “It’s part of the plan” betray such fatalism. The biblical terms noted above have to do with God’s determination to love his people and his world. This language stresses in the strongest manner possible that God has loved us from before the “beginning” and will love us beyond “the end”. And God’s love will prevail over everything. His love for us depends on nothing we bring to the table (thank God!) but solely on God’s being love himself.
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