Essentials of Ephesians - Lesson 3

Then in verse 9, he says that not only is God abounding grace toward us in all wisdom, but this is what else God does, verse 9, “He makes known to us the mystery of his will.” Now, this word ‘mystery’ here is important. When we think of the word mystery—I love watching mysteries where you’re trying to figure out, “Okay, how is this story going to end?” And in my own guess at how the story is going to end, I’m usually wrong about who the villain is versus who the victor is in the show. 

But that’s not what Paul means by mystery. He doesn’t mean something’s hard to figure out. By mystery, Paul means something was previously hidden, but now it’s revealed. It’s revealed because it’s the Messianic Age. It’s revealed by Christ, by the Spirit. So, when Christ enters into this world, there are things being revealed by the Spirit because the Spirit anoints the Christ. There are things being revealed by the Spirit that were unclear in the Old Testament that anticipated the Messianic age, but didn’t see clearly how things were going to happen. 

I think this is supported when you jump ahead to Ephesians 3, when Paul elaborates on this mystery. And he says in Ephesians 3, if you jump down to verse 8, he says, “This grace was given to me, the least of all the saints.” Now here’s what the grace that was given to him was, ”To announce,” the grace of the gospel was given to him, “to announce this good news to the Gentiles, the inexpressible riches of Christ.” 

Now, notice verse 9, he talks about in verse 9, “The mystery, which was hidden from ages ago in God.” Okay. Now what’s that mystery, Paul, that was hidden? And when was it hidden? Well, let me answer the second question first. It was hidden in the previous ages, that is, it was hidden in the Old Covenant Age. The prophets talked about the mystery, Isaiah 40 to 66, but it wasn’t clearly revealed how it was going to all work out. 

And Paul says it’s been made known now. Well, how has it been made known? It’s been made known now, notice this, “to the rulers, to the authorities in the heavenly places through the church.” 

And what is that mystery? That mystery is, jump back to verse 6, “that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” 

So, if you go back to 1:9, when Paul talks about the mystery, he’s making the point that the mystery has been revealed, which is Jews and Gentiles are unified in Christ Jesus. 

He says that also in 3:5, ”This mystery was not made known to the sons of men as it’s revealed now to the holy prophets and apostles by the Spirit.” So, when Paul says, “God has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in Christ,” he means that God has made known to, verse 10, “to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things upon the earth.” That’s a shorthand way of saying God has decided to unify all things and all people in Christ. 

In other words, it was God’s redemptive plan all the way back in Genesis to restore what Adam and Eve lost in the garden. It was God’s redemptive plan to crush the seed of the serpent by means of the seed of the woman. It was God’s redemptive plan to give Abraham a seed and to bless Abraham and to give him a land and to universally bless people through Abraham. It was God’s redemptive plan to give David a descendant. It was God’s redemptive plan to bring the servant of the Lord upon whom the Spirit rested to deliver Israel from her exile and to restore them as his people. It was God’s redemptive plan way back in the Old Testament to justify the many by means of the suffering servant in Isaiah 53. It was God’s redemptive plan to write the law on the hearts of his people, to put his Spirit within them, Ezekiel 36, to raise them from the dead, Ezekiel 37. It was God’s redemptive plan, Jeremiah 31 and 31 [recte Jeremiah 31:33], to write the law on the hearts of his people and to give them a new covenant. It was God’s redemptive plan to pour out his spirit on all flesh, Jews and Gentiles, male and female. And Paul is saying here that that redemptive plan has been fulfilled and realized in Jesus Christ because he’s the Messiah and he’s ushered in the Messianic Age of the Spirit and he praises God for that. 

That’s why he says now in verse 11, “In Christ, we also have been given an inheritance because we were predestined according to the purpose of the One who works all things in accordance with the counsel of his will.” Predestined “so that we would be the first ones to hope in Christ for the praise of his glory.” 

Paul probably alludes here to the idea that in terms of God’s redemptive plan, the priority in that plan has been the Jewish people. So, remember this, we have to remember this as Gentile Christians, that the Jewish people was not plan A that failed and then plan B is Christianity. If that’s your belief, you need to change that view. It’s always been God’s redemptive plan to bring about the Jewish Messiah through the Jewish people to save Jews and Gentiles by means of the Jewish Messiah. 

And what Paul is saying is the priority of that plan of salvation was the Jewish people. Remember this, the first Christians were Jews and Jesus was not a Christian. He was a Jew calling people to himself, the Jewish Messiah. And those followers of Jesus took on the name of “Christ follower,” Christian eventually. But the first Christians were Jewish Christians. That’s why Paul says things like the “gospel is the power of God unto salvation to the Jew first and then also for the Greek.” So, we have to remember that God’s redemptive plan started with the Jewish people. 

So then through the promises to Abraham and to David and to the Jewish people, what God is saying is that he’s bringing about the redemption of Jews who trust in Christ and Gentiles who trust in Christ by means of this Jewish Messiah. Jesus is and always will be a Jewish Messiah and Gentiles are grafted into those Jewish promises by faith in Jesus Christ, the Jewish Messiah, along with Jews who follow Jesus Christ. And Paul says, “We were the first to hope in Christ.” 

But then he turns to the hearing and the receiving of the gospel. In verse 13, “In whom also,” notice the shift of the pronoun here. He says, “In whom also you all now…” See, this is one reason why I think when he says, “We would be the first to hope in Christ,” that he’s talking about Jews. Because he’s switching the pronoun here and he’s turning toward the Gentiles, I think, so that you would hear the gospel or the word of the gospel, the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believe. 

Yes, it is absolutely true - Jews must hear the word of truth, the gospel and believe it. Yes and amen. But Paul’s making a precise ethnic point here with respect to Gentiles. That for Gentiles to be included within these Jewish messianic promises, they had to hear the gospel and believe it. At least Jews had an ethnic connection to those promises because they were Jews. 

Now, those promises aren’t realized in the life of the Jewish people apart from faith in Jesus, the Jewish Messiah. But my point is, is that God gave those promises to Abraham and to Jews, and Gentiles were included within those promises through the coming of the son of Abraham, namely Jesus Christ, who is the Messiah. 

And so, Paul is saying now to these Gentiles, “You,” verse 13, “you also having heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in which also you believed when you heard it and believed it,” verse 13, “you were sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise.” Look at that. Along with Jews, Gentiles are sealed by the Spirit. 

The sealing here is strong language. In the ancient world, when something was sealed, it was an official stamp or mark and it secured the document that was sent. You look at Revelation, for example, and there’s a scene in John’s vision where there’s a book or scroll that no one had the power to open or to snatch or to snap open its seal except the Son of Man or the Lamb of God. The scroll was given to him and he snapped the seal because he had authority to do so. So, this word of sealing here is an authoritative confirmation like seal. 

We know that we are the people of God as Gentile Christians because we trust in Jesus. And we know we trust in Jesus and that we’re bound for the promised land of the kingdom because God has sealed us with the Spirit. The Spirit is our guarantee that we will—we have and we will enter the kingdom of God. So, you Gentiles, we Gentiles, have done that. 

And we must remember that brothers and sisters, that those of us who are not Jews who are watching these lectures, we are Gentiles. Unless you are a Jew, it doesn’t matter what the color of your skin is or what part of the world you’re from, unless you are Jewish, you are a Gentile. And we are included into these promises to Jews by means of Jesus, the Jewish Messiah. 

And the promises to Jews are fulfilled for Jews by means of the Jewish Messiah. But those Jews must trust in Jesus Christ by faith to experience the fulfillment of those promises. And Gentiles must trust in Jesus Christ by faith to experience the inclusion within those promises. And if we have trusted in Jesus by faith, we and Jews together in Christ have been sealed by the Holy Spirit. 

Notice he says, “the promised Holy Spirit.” Question, when was the Spirit promised? Isaiah 11, Ezekiel 36 and 37, Jeremiah 31:31, Joel chapter 2:28. And the promise of the Spirit was a promise that would be fulfilled in the Messianic Age. 

So, Paul says we are included in the promises, the prophetic promises regarding the Messianic Age because we’re in the Messiah. That’s why he’s been saying in Christ, in Christ all the way through the text. And the Holy Spirit, he says, verse 14, “is the guarantee of our inheritance.” 

Now, notice that word inheritance. That’s so important. God promised Abraham an inheritance which he died without receiving. God promised Israel a promised land. They got a piece of it, they were in it for a while, but they were expelled from it. That inheritance never became a reality. That inheritance continues to be promised throughout the prophetic tradition. As Yahweh promises that there would be a new Jerusalem coming down from heaven, that promise is realized in the kingdom of God. The inheritance that Paul is describing here is the inheritance of all the redemptive promises in Christ, one of which is the Spirit and another of which is the kingdom. 

To support that point, notice in chapter 5, for example, in chapter 5, Paul gives the Ephesians a series of exhortations, and he tells them in chapter 5 that they must live a godly life. “If they don’t live a godly life,” he says in verse 5, “they will not have an inheritance,” same word as in chapter 1, “in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” 

So, Paul here in 1:14, is saying that we in Christ Jesus have received the gospel of our salvation, heard the gospel and received it. Saved from God’s wrath, we are entered into a covenant relationship with God, we have the Spirit sealing us for the inheritance of the kingdom. 

I think that’s what he means because of verse 14, he says, connecting, if you look back to verse 13, he talks about being sealed, and then he, this is how you should read this language of being sealed. “You were sealed,” sealed for what? “Sealed for the redemption of a possession for the praise of his glory.” 

That’s a tricky verse there. There are different ways to read the verse, but when Paul talks about being sealed for the day, or for redemption, for the redemption of a possession, I think he means that we are sealed by the Spirit to receive redemption, which is our future inheritance. So, we’re redeemed to receive an inheritance. That’s what I think he means. 

Now, of course, he describes redemption in 1:7 as forgiveness of our sins, but here he seems to be speaking, what we say is eschatological about redemption. That is, we are sealed for something that’s yet to come. We’re forgiven for our sins now. That’s why I’m describing the salvation that we have is already, not yet. My sins are forgiven, but salvation also includes the reception of the kingdom of God. 

So as someone whose sins are forgiven, I am sealed by the Spirit for the future day of redemption when the kingdom of God will break into this present evil age, when Jesus comes back a second time and I’ll receive my inheritance then, which is the new heavens and the new earth, eternal life with all the saints of old. 

So, I think that’s right because of what he says later in chapter 4 verse 30. In 4:30, he uses the same language of being sealed and he uses the same word for redemption. He tells them in 4:30, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by means of whom you were sealed.” 

Now notice what he says next, “You were sealed for the day of redemption.” Oh, wait a second…I thought I was redeemed when my sins were forgiven? (1:7) Yes. But that’s a very important part, but a part nevertheless of God’s massive redemptive plan. We’re also sealed to inherit the kingdom. That’s why in 5, he talks about inheriting the kingdom. 

So, the apostle Paul is saying in these first 14 verses, some glorious truths. Praise God that he chose Jews and Gentiles in Christ, in love, to be this messianic people who will inherit a kingdom. 

A few practical thoughts here. Number one, just take a moment right now where you’re watching these lectures and just offer some words of praise to God. Just praise the Lord for choosing you in Christ, for predestining you unto adoption, for redeeming you by the blood of Jesus, for revealing to you the mystery that you are a child of God in Christ Jesus by faith, for sealing you by the Spirit for the day of redemption, for giving you an inheritance in the kingdom. Praise God that you heard the gospel. Someone shared the gospel with you and you believed it. Praise God for that. 

So, the application is really what Paul is saying should move us to praise, to doxology. There’s an old saying that goes this way in theological circles: Orthodoxy should lead to doxology. Right doctrine should lead to right worship, but right doctrine should also lead to what’s called orthopraxy (practice). So that’s my second application. Because of God’s redemptive plan in Jesus to save us and make us his people, Ephesians 4:1-5, live a godly life. We should walk in a manner worthy of our calling. We should live our lives wholly devoted to God. We should confess our sins. We should love one another as believers. We should love our neighbors as ourselves. These glorious truths aren’t truths for us so that we can just simply get intellectually strong to push back the darkness and to bring people out of the darkness into the light. 

Third application would be, I want to relate it to evangelism once again, share the truth of the gospel with those who need to hear it and know that election gives you confidence that God will save his elect through the preaching of the gospel. So, pray for unbelievers. Pray for God to give you meaningful friendships with unbelievers. Yes, with the appropriate boundaries, but meaningful friendships where you can; yes, be a meaningful friend to someone, but also use that friendship to help shine some light into darkness as God opens up some doors.