Category Archives: Ephesians

Ephesians 1:6

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To the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

Ephesians

Ephesians 1:6

And what was the purpose of all of the actions of God described here? So that His glorious grace would be praised. The word “blessed” in this verse is very closely related to the word “grace.” So we could almost say, “To the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has graced us.” God’s grace is multi-faceted. God wants everyone to see how grand and glorious His grace is.


This grace has made us accepted! Think about that. Accepted. Some versions use the word “accepted” where the ESV uses blessed. Most of us try hard to be accepted. We do this both consciously and subconsciously, but we do it. Sometimes we wear ourselves out trying to become accepted. But we are accepted by God! And it is by grace. There is no effort involved. Because we are in Christ, God says, “I accept you. You belong to me.” There is no checklist or achievement program to maintain. We are accepted!


And all of this, as in the previous verses, is in the Beloved. In his beloved son. As I said in a previous comment, when God gave us Christ, he gave us everything. As Paul told the Corinthians, “And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Exported from Logos Bible Software, 9:20 AM September 14, 2020.

Ephesians 1:5

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He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,

The phrase “in love” may belong to the previous sentence about being holy and blameless, or it may belong with verse 5. Either way, all of the things that God has accomplished on our behalf were carried out because of God’s great love for us, his creatures made in His image.
In verse 5 we are told by Christ’s emissary, that God predestined us for adoption. He designated, or appointed something to happen ahead of time. What did he predestine? That we would be adopted as sons of God through Jesus Christ and his saving work on our behalf. Don’t just read past this. God was determined to have adopted children, who, we learn in Romans 8:17, are co-heirs with Jesus Christ. If you’ve trusted Christ, you are one of those co-heirs!


The last part of the verse tells us that God did this according to the purpose of his will. In other words, because he wanted to. God can do what he wants, and this is something he wanted to do, to adopt a group of people to be his children along with his son, Jesus Christ. And, since God doesn’t change, if this is something He wants to do now, then it’s something He has always wanted to do.

Exported from Logos Bible Software, 5:10 PM September 13, 2020.

Ephesians 1:4

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…even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love

Just as he has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ, he chose us in Christ. Notice how the word “in” is repeated in this passage. This is a description of what we have “in Christ.”

He chose us in him before the foundation of the world. When you read the story of the creation event and Adam and Eve, before this took place, he chose us in Christ. And there was a goal in that choosing. His goal was that we would be holy and blameless before him. God doesn’t need a plan B. He knew Adam would fall and the whole world would be fallen and depraved from birth. And yet, before all of this happened, he chose us to be holy and blameless before him. He planned to rescue people from the lost condition they were in, and to pour out his grace on them in such a way that they would be holy. That means set apart, and blameless before God. God knows everything about us. He knows all of our faults and failures. And yet, when Christians come before God, they are blameless.

Remember that today when you come before God through His word and in prayer. If you’ve trusted Christ as your savior, He sees you blameless. What a blessing!

Exported from Logos Bible Software, 11:49 AM September 3, 2020.

Ephesians 1:3

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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,

Ephesians

Ephesians 1:3

What Paul is exclaiming here is that God is worthy of being praised. Blessed be God! Which God, Paul, are you talking about? Specifically, He is the God of the Bible, the God and Father of Jesus Christ.

Paul, who had been a persecutor of Christians and who denied that Jesus was Lord, now is blessing the God who is the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And what has this God done? He has blessed us! He has blessed us in Christ. In giving Christ to us, God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. See for example 1 Corinthians 1:30-31. There are no additional blessings that we are missing. In other words, we don’t need anything other than Christ. If we have Him and are in Him, we have every blessing heaven has to offer!

Think about that the next time you are tempted to murmur or complain. Think about that the next time you feel like you’ve been short-changed and want to ask for additional blessings from God. We’ve been blessed with every spiritual blessing.

Exported from Logos Bible Software, 10:53 AM August 29, 2020.

Ephesians 1:2

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Ephesians 1:2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace and peace. This is common in Paul’s salutations, and we usually read right over it. But think about what it is saying. Unmerited favor and the peace of God and peace with God are being offered both from God and from Jesus Christ our Lord. This is more than a salutation. It is a promise from God through the mouth of his apostle. It is a promise to all those whose faith and trust are in Jesus Christ.

God has promised us His grace. We are, after all, saved by grace and not through any merit we could achieve. He has promised that His mercies are new every single morning!

And He has given us peace. Jesus said, My peace I give to you, not like the peace the world gives. (John 14:27 paraphrase.) And note that it is His peace. God is at rest. Nothing disturbs Him. His peace He gives to us.

Grace and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Exported from Logos Bible Software, 10:23 AM August 29, 2020.

Ephesians 1:1

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A while back I decided that in order to keep my focus on the study of the Bible and not just the reading, I would write my thoughts on the book of Ephesians verse by verse. It will be sort of a simplified commentary.

Ephesians 1:1

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus:

Paul declares himself to be an apostle of Christ Jesus. An apostle is one who is sent as an emissary to give out the message that the sender wants people to hear, in this case, to the holy, set apart people in Ephesus.

This is the same Paul who persecuted the church and threw people in jail and even approved of their murder. This is the person who Christ sent to be a messenger.
Paul told the Galatian Christians that God had set him apart for this responsibility while in his mother’s womb. (Galatians 1:15) But, when the time was right, God revealed Christ to him on the road to Damascus.

Paul calls the people in Ephesus saints and faithful. Perhaps he means people who are believers i.e. full of faith. But saints? Holy ones. These are just ordinary people that he addresses as saints. All of those who trust Christ and have faith in Him are saints. Have you trusted Christ? Then you, too, are a saint. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Finally, note here as well that they are in Christ Jesus. This theme is found throughout Ephesians. They are in Christ. That is the only safe place to be. How do we get “in Christ”? By the work of the Holy Spirit when we believe on Christ. He places us into the body of Christ. (1 Corinthians 12:13)

Exported from Logos Bible Software, 9:55 AM August 29, 2020.

Moment by Moment

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Suddenly yesterday I found myself singing the old hymn, Moment by Moment. To me, the very first line is an essential truth that we Christians need to grasp. I began to grasp this as a young man, but as the years have passed, I have realized how central this is to living the Christian life and finding victory over sin, and having joy in understanding what in fact took place when we were converted.

The first line of the song says, “Dying with Jesus by death reckoned mine.” I’ll expand on this as we go along, but what it is saying is that once I’m in Christ, His death is my death, and by extension, His resurrection is my resurrection.

Some scriptural examples:
Romans 6:8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him

Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.

Colossians 3:3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Ephesians 2:4-6 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

These truths have been central and core beliefs for me. When Christ died, I died with Him. I died to the old life; I died to sin. Since I was also raised with Christ, I have been resurrected to a new life. These things are true for all believers, but it doesn’t always feel like it and we don’t act like it. But the key is the word “reckon” which is used in the song I started with. It means to count it to be true. It doesn’t mean “pretend” it’s true. It is true, but we need to reckon it true in our life. Romans 6:11 says, “Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I cannot stress enough how important this is. Satan reminds us that the wages of sin is death. Our answer should be, “I already had my death when Jesus died.” There is no further punishment for sin. It is finished!

I would strongly recommend a thorough and careful reading of Romans 6:1-14. Read it often and meditate on it deeply. Understanding this one truth can transform your life!

God’s Mystery – Our Salvation

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In Colossians 1:26 Paul speaks of a “mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations.” What kind of mystery would God have that he would keep it hidden for ages? According to Scripture, this mystery has now been revealed to His saints. “Now” means at the time Paul wrote this. That means that for ages past there has been some truth that God purposely waited to reveal until the time was right. In Romans 16:25, Paul tells us that the mystery was kept secret since the world began, but is now made manifest by the Scriptures and made known to all nations.

Whatever this mystery is, God already had it in mind when He created the world! We get glimpses of what this mystery is in several passages. Romans 11:25, for example, says that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. In Ephesians 1:9ff. Paul writes, “having made known to us the mystery of His will … that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth – in Him.”

We see further in Ephesians 3:3-6 that this mystery was not made known to men in other ages, but now has been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel. There we have it! In the Old Testament it appeared that God had chosen one people, one nation to be His special people. But now we learn that since the beginning, God intended to bring the gentiles into the blessings of Christ offered in the gospel. In verse nine he continues, “and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

It’s amazing to me to think that God wanted to show His wisdom to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. From Ephesians 6:12 we know that our battle is with the principalities and powers in heavenly places. So, it seems to me that God is using this mystery of the inclusion of the gentiles in his eternal plan to demonstrate his wisdom to his enemies – the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. This is the plan of salvation that began with the people of Israel in the Old Testament era, but once Christ had come and completed the work of redemption, the mystery was unveiled in all of its splendor as the gospel was announced to all peoples everywhere. I wonder what the principalities and powers thought when once they only had to focus on one small people, but now their doom is sure as they see the manifold wisdom of God spreading like wild-fire throughout the world.

Thoughts from Ephesians – 6

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Ephesians 2:11-18

 

Paul called on the Ephesians to remember that there was a time when they were outside of the covenant people of God. During the Old Testament period, God worked with the nation of Israel. He wanted His praise and testimony to be known in all the world through Israel, but the covenants were given to this particular people. Paul says in Eph 2:12 “You were aliens from Israel and strangers to the covenants and without hope and without God.” (my paraphrase) That was not a minor technicality! Being without hope and without God were serious problems making it impossible to know God or have eternal life.

Paul goes on to say that now, in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. The wall of separation between Jew and non-Jew has been broken down. The enmity which is the law of commandments in the ordinances has been abolished. The commandments and ordinances were the documents that defined Israel and separated them from the rest of the world. Christ has abolished that separation and is creating in himself one new man from the two.

God’s purpose is that both Jews and Gentiles will be reconciled to God as part of one body, not two. Both have access by one Spirit (not two) to the Father.

It is interesting to me that this reconciling work (both to God and to each other) was accomplished on the cross. I think an interesting study some time would be to study through all that was accomplished by Christ on the cross.

Since most of us reading and sharing about these things are Gentiles, it should cause great rejoicing to think that God has made it possible for us to be part of His people too. We are not strangers and aliens any longer!

Thoughts from Ephesians – 5

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Ephesians 2:1-10

And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,  in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Paul personalizes the exceeding greatness of God’s power that he just talked about. He told us that the power toward us is the same as the power that raised Christ from the dead. Now he explains that we also have been raised from the dead. The phrase “He made alive” in verse 1 is not in the original. That’s why it is in italics in your Bible. So first, he describes the lostness from which we were raised but he doesn’t explain the resurrection until verse 5. Our condition is described as one of death in trespasses and sins. We used to walk in this condition following the pattern of the world and in the plan of the prince of this world, Satan. We also lived according to the lusts of our flesh and were in our natural state children of wrath just like everybody else. We were naturally the objects of God’s wrath, anger and condemnation.

But God, because He is rich in mercy and because of the great love He has for us, made us alive with Christ. He did this even when we were dead in our trespasses. Nothing is said here of our faith or our responsiveness to the gospel. It takes a living person to be able to respond. We were dead. Resurrection comes before response. Just as in the case of Lazarus. Jesus called him out of the tomb and he came out. Did Jesus give him life because he obediently came out of the tomb or did Lazarus respond because of the life God had given him? The same is true of us. The calling of God and the Word of God grant life and then there is response.

We have been more than raised. There are several other actions that God has (past tense) performed. He has raised us up together and made us sit together with Christ in heavenly places. These have already occurred. As far as God is concerned, we are already there.

So many times we focus on us as the reason for everything God does, but in this passage we get a different point of view. God’s purpose in all of this is that in the ages to come he might show how rich His grace is as it was demonstrated by His kindness. He wants all of creation to realize how great His grace is. It has everything to do with the glory of God and His greatness. Because, after all, it is by grace we have been saved through faith. All of this is a gift of God, not through any of our own works because then we might boast. We are the workmanship of God. We are His creation – both the original and the new creation in Christ.