Ephesians - Lesson 3

I. Ephesians 1:3–14 as Doxology

In Ephesians 1:3-14, Paul now begins what many have called a section where he praises God. We call it a doxology. He praises God for the spiritual blessings that we have in Christ Jesus. 

II. Trinitarian Focus in Praise (1:3) 

More specifically in the context of the argument, he praises God for the spiritual blessings God has given to Jews and Gentiles in Christ. He mentions first in verse 3, we notice that he’s praising God because he says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Now, just to pause there once again and highlight something about these titles Paul is applying to Jesus. Notice he mentions that Jesus is the “Lord” there in verse 3, and he’s the Messiah. He also identifies Jesus as the one who is of the Father, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus. Clearly, just like in verse 2, he’s distinguishing God, the Father, from Jesus. Jesus is not the Father. He is the Son. Yet he’s demonstrating that Jesus as the Son is still the Lord. He is sharing in Yahweh’s divine identity. There is this sameness in that they’re sharing in the same essence and nature as God, but they’re different in that they are not the same person. They’re the Father, Jesus is the Son, and the Father is the Father. Later on, he’ll mention the Holy Spirit. As I said in the beginning, you have a robustly Trinitarian articulation by Paul in different places of the letter, and he starts by praising the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

When he praises the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, notice that Jesus as the Son is linked to that praise in that God is providing the spiritual blessings to God’s people in Christ Jesus. So, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

III. Every Spiritual Blessing in Christ

Now, here’s a question: As you read the Bible, I think we should ask it questions and then try to answer questions by looking to the text. For what reasons does Paul praise God? When he says “praise God” here, he’s praising him for particular reasons. He praises him for, in verse 3, “every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.” More specifically, he’s praising God for blessing us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. 

Now, a couple of things about this statement. Notice he says who blessed “us.” Praise God who blessed “us.” Who are the “us”? The “us” are Jews and Gentiles. I think Paul will make that clear as we work through the rest of this section. But Jews and Gentiles, not Jews alone nor Gentiles as Jews, but Jews in Christ and Gentiles in Christ are recipients of God’s spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. 

The second question I think we should ask ourselves is, “What does he mean when he says who’s blessed us with every spiritual blessing?” What is every spiritual blessing? I don’t think Paul gives us every single spiritual blessing that God has ever given to us, but he does give us in this section specific spiritual blessings that God has blessed Jews and Gentiles within Christ Jesus. Some of those are, as we’ll think about them individually in a moment, election and predestination in Ephesians 1:4–5 and then redemption in verse 7, and then revelation of his will in verse 9 stating we received an inheritance because of predestination in verse 11. Then we were sealed with the Holy Spirit through faith because we heard the gospel in verse 13. So, he’s thinking about specific spiritual blessings that we have and he begins by praising God. This, brothers and sisters, is a doxology.

IV. The Heavenly Places

What God has done for us in Christ, Paul thinks it ought to move us to worship him. Too often, I can read verses like this and process cognitively what they say but not be moved to worship. Even as I have been thinking and praying and reading through Ephesians, I’m asking the Lord to move my affections, my emotions to worship him. That is, in fact, what Paul expects God’s spiritual blessings to do, to move us to worship him. He’s going to talk about those spiritual blessings in a moment. But notice the phrase in verse 3. He says, “in the heavenly places” or “in the heavenlies in Christ.” “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3).

What are the “heavenlies in Christ”? This is very important, I think, in Ephesians. When Paul talks about the ‘heavenlies,’ he at least talks about two different heavenly places in Ephesians, such as here in chapter 1, verse 3. Later in Ephesians 1:20, he talks about the heavenly places as a realm. Think of it as a spiritual realm where God is reigning over everything. Christ is reigning with God at his right hand over everything. Also, we are reigning with God in Christ as those who have been the recipients of every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

As God has raised us spiritually from the dead, so as we live on Earth right now, we are reigning with God in Christ in terms of a real kingdom experience while we live and wait for a future aspect of that kingdom to come where we will reign physically with God over all things forever. It’s a spiritual location where God is reigning and Christ is reigning over everything. In fact, Paul says in Ephesians 1:20 that God raised Christ from the dead and he seated him at the right hand of God. Look at verse 20 there “in the heavenlies.” Notice now what he says. We’ll talk more about this verse when we get to this section. But notice for now what he says that in the heavenlies, to what does that refer? Well, it refers in verse 21, to above every ruler. Every authority, every power, every Lord, every name, which is named not only in this age, but also in the age which is coming.

Paul seems to identify the heavenly places here, both in Ephesians 1:3 and in 2:20 [recte 1:20] as God’s comprehensive sovereign rule over everything earthly and demonic. God and Christ are reigning over all things. We reign with God in Christ because we’ve received these spiritual blessings from God from the heavenly places. He’s raised us up with Christ, in Ephesians 2, to be alive with him. But Paul also talks about another ‘heavenly places’ in the letter. Go look ahead at Ephesians 6:12. He talks about the heavenly places as a realm wherein the devil reigns, wherein the principalities and powers of the air reign, wherein the demonic forces of evil reign. This is the section wherein Paul talks about the real spiritual warfare that believers experience because they are followers of Christ.

He exhorts the Ephesians in 6:10 to be empowered in the Lord, strengthened in the Lord and in the strength of his might. And then in verse 11, he exhorts them to put on the full armor of God, which I will argue when we get here, he’s referring to the gospel. Put on the gospel in your daily Christian lives. He wants them to put on the gospel because the gospel is the only thing that can help them, in verse 11, to withstand the demonic, diabolical schemes of the devil. Then he says this: Here’s the reason why that’s true in verse 12—this is the verse to which I want you to look to make my main point about the heavenly places, because the battle that we experience in verse 12 is not a battle with flesh and blood or against flesh and blood. It’s not a human battle. It’s a supernatural battle.

Then he says it’s a battle against the rulers or with the authorities, with the cosmic forces of darkness of this world, against the spiritual forces of evil. Now, notice the last phrase, “in the heavenly places.” “Whoa! Wait a minute Paul. You just said in Ephesians 1:3 that you’re praising God because of the fact that he blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. You also said, Paul, in Ephesians 1:20, that God raised Jesus above every demonic power in the heavenly places. And now you’re saying in Ephesians 6:12 that the heavenly places are a realm wherein the demonic forces of evil reign?”

There seem to be at least two heavenly places in Paul’s cosmology, let’s say. One is the place where God reigns over everything and we reign with God in Christ. Beneath that reign of God’s sovereignty over everything, God has given all the anti-God powers, including the devil, some power. In other words, the heavenly places that he describes in Ephesians 6:12 referred to the realm of darkness where God has given the devil some power to reign. 

Now, here’s some good news. The good news is that the devil is God’s devil. He can only do what the Lord allows him to do. The only power that he has is God-given power. So, God is comprehensively sovereign over everything, everything in the heavenly places where God reigns and everything over all the anti-God heavenly places that reign beneath the feet of Jesus over this current world of darkness. In fact, God is so sovereign over everything, both the realm in which he reigns and the realm in which these powers of darkness reign, that he’s able to break in through the incarnation of Jesus and “deliver us from this present evil age” (Galatians 1:4). He’s able to break in by the power of the Spirit, according to Ephesians 2, and to resurrect us from the dead and seat us in not the heavenly places ruled by the powers of darkness, but in the heavenly places ruled by God in Christ, who comprehensively reigns over all things. 

The basic point here in Ephesians 1:3 is that Paul is praising God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, because he has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. He’s blessed us with his spiritual blessings, which flow from his sovereign rule, his sovereign reign; they flow from his kingdom.

It’s no mistake, by the way, that he calls Jesus “the Messiah.” He links this language of Father of the Messiah. It’s very important language here because as the Messiah, Jesus has this unique relationship with the Father. And we, because of our relationship with Jesus, have a relationship with the Father. So, Jesus’s sonship is also linked to his messianic identity. We have these spiritual blessings from God, his Father, who’s also our Father. And we have these blessings only in the Messiah. They’re blessings that come from God’s sovereign, comprehensive reign, his presence, his rule, his kingdom that break in this present evil age and triumph over the powers of all the anti-God powers, which I think Ephesians 1:20 in a moment will support. 

V. Election Before Creation (1:4)

But more specifically in verses 4 and 5, he’s going to identify, as I’ve already stated, what some of these spiritual blessings are, in verses 4 and following. The first one he mentions is the election in verse 4 and then secondly, predestination in verse 5. So, verse 4, to the degree that or just as he chose us in him—that’s Christ—before the foundation of the world. 

Let’s sit there for a moment. This is a very, very important verse. When I was young, excuse me, I was an athlete and I remember playing pickup games in my small town in eastern Kentucky. It was an event to have a pickup game. The talent was so good, and at times it was so plentiful that if you lost your pickup game, you would likely not have a chance, as we would say, to run it back and play another game because so many people would come from all of the hollers, if you know what that is. In eastern Kentucky, it means to play ball in my community. And we would always pick teams. Those of us who were captains of our teams would pick the players based on their skill set. We would choose them based on their skill set. We would elect them based on what we observed about their game. 

Well, Paul is talking in verse 3 [recte 4] about God’s divine choice or election. But he’s not talking about God’s choice or election in the same way that we talk about electing an official to an office or choosing someone based on his skills or her skills to play in a basketball pickup game. Instead, he’s making a point that God made. Notice how he phrases the verse. He made a decision, “Before the foundation of the world” to choose us in him, that is in Christ, that is—here’s this point—it was God’s sovereign design, his desire to set his covenantal love upon some Jews and some Gentiles before they were born, in fact, before the world was created. If you notice, for example, this language of election elsewhere in the Bible, I think it supports my point. This word pops up or the concept pops up in numerous places in Paul. 

But I think to really grasp what Paul is saying, we must think back to the Old Testament. I want you to turn, if you would, to Deuteronomy 7. You have Moses writing to God’s people, known as Israel, and he is reminding them who they are, from where they’ve come and where they’re going. He is reminding them of what the Lord has done for them, and what they must therefore do in response. When you come to Deuteronomy 7:6, he’s making very specific claims about Israel’s identity that are anchored in God’s choice of them to be his people. Notice something that he says about this choice: He says, in verse 6, “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God,” here’s the language of election, “The Lord your God has chosen you” to be a people. 

Let’s stop for a moment and reflect upon that. Why is it that Israel is this unique people connected to Abraham, connected to a Law eventually, connected to a land, and also connected to a temple at a particular point in their history? It’s not because they did anything in themselves to merit God’s choice of them as his people. But to the contrary, Moses is going to say that God made them a treasured possession because he loved them. It was his sovereign choice of Israel, his love for them, his covenantal love for them, his love based not on what he foresaw them to do, not based on what he forethought they would be, but based on his desire before the foundation of the world to enter into a covenant with a people whom he would create before he created them, known as Israel. “You are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all of the peoples who are on the face of the earth.” In verse 7, it was not “because you were more in number than any other people,” that the Lord, notice this language, “set his love on you and chose you...” There it is. In fact, in Ephesians 1:4, you have at the end of the verse that word ‘in love’—and some interpreters take the ‘in love’ with predestination in verse 5 and others take it back with election in verse 4. I think both predestination and election—those concepts go together. But it seems to me, if in fact Paul is linking the identity of those in Christ with God’s language of election in Deuteronomy 7, it makes sense to take love with election.

So, God chose Israel. There’s election in verse 7. He chose Israel because he loved Israel.

He chose to set his love upon Israel because he loved Israel, “…for you were the fewest of all the people,” in verse 7. But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers that the Lord has brought you out with the mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. We’ll see it in verse 7, but also in Deuteronomy, you have the language of redemption connected to choice and election.

Likewise, in Ephesians 1:7 you have redemption connected back with the idea of election and God’s love of using Gentiles in Christ. One thing Paul is doing, in my view, is he’s taking this language that God applies to Israel in the Old Testament election and covenantal love and redemption and possession and other language as well—and he’s applying it to Jews and Gentiles in Christ.

One thing that Paul did when he encountered the crucified and risen Lord, when he appeared to him on the Damascus Road, was he began to re-categorize how he understood different theological categories prior to faith in Christ, such as, who are the people of God now that the Messiah had come? How do the Gentiles relate to God now that Christ had come? How do the Jews relate to God now that Christ has come? So, one thing I think he’s doing is, he’s now understanding that now that the Messianic Age has dawned, those who are in Christ, whether they’re Jews or Gentiles, are fulfilling what God had done in the Old Testament through this people known as Israel, namely that Israel was marked off for this period of time by a Law, by a land, by a temple eventually, to be a people possessed by God, owned by God, purchased for God, chosen by God. But in Paul’s view, that was always anticipatory of the moment in history when the Messiah would come and do that cosmic work that Isaiah promised, that Yahweh promised to Abraham to bless those from every family of the earth. That’s realized in Paul’s theology in the Jewish Messiah. He says it here, I think, in part by linking the salvation or the spiritual blessings that Jews and Gentiles in Christ receive with this language that’s applied to Israel in the Old Testament, namely this language of election in love. He says he chose—so praise God that he chose us in him, that is in the Messiah, in Christ. He chose us to be in union with Christ before the foundation of the world.

Now, one could argue in verse 4 when he says he chose us— they could limit that language to refer to Jews. But it seems to me that’s not what he’s doing at this point of the argument because he’s already wished a blessing of grace, in verse 2, and peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ to ‘you all.’ You see that there in verse 2, to grace, to ‘you all.’ That’s a plural in Greek, to ‘you all’ and peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Then he moves in to talking about the spiritual blessings that we have received in Christ because the spiritual blessings that Gentiles received in Christ are the same spiritual blessings that Jews receive in Christ. So, he’s talking not only about Jews in verse 4, he’s talking about how Gentiles and Jews in Christ are included in these promises and how these blessings only come to those who are in Christ, whether they are Jews and Gentiles. The reason these blessings come is because God, in verse 4, chose us—and notice the temporality here—before the foundation of the world. 

I think theological categories are important, but I also think sometimes theological labels can hinder us from seeing what the text is saying. There are disagreements about what Paul means by ‘election’ and ‘predestination.’ But one can’t deny that Paul has a view of election and predestination because he says God chose that selection. Notice again, when he chose before the foundation of the world, he’s not telling us the choice was based upon the individual. In fact, if you read Ephesians 2:1-10, he would not make the choice based on the individual’s behavior or pattern or expectations that the individual would meet because Paul says we were dead in trespasses and sin. So, here’s what should move us to worship as those who are in Christ: It is the reality that before you and I decided—yes, I believe that—to follow Jesus; it was before we realized by the power of the Spirit that we wanted to ask Jesus to come into our heart. I have no problem with that language. I’m a Baptist preacher after all. But before we made a decision to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back. God decided before the foundation of the world that he would choose to send his love upon individuals from every tongue and tribe and people and nation so that the reason why the choice to receive the gospel and to believe it flows out of God’s sovereign decision to save some people for his glory and to set his love upon them because he wanted to do that to magnify the greatness of his great name (cf. Revelation 5:9). That’s where Paul goes as you read further throughout the text. 

VI. Purpose of Election

But just notice, why did God choose us in Christ, in verse 4? To sit around and argue all the time about the fact that we’re chosen, right? Wrong. To have debates about different theological views of election? Wrong. Theological debates are great. But he chose us with a specific goal in mind. According to verse four, he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. Here’s the purpose: so that we would be holy and blameless in his presence.

Now, there could be at least two things happening here with the phrase “in his presence.” He could be only talking about God making us positionally holy and righteous or blameless in God’s presence. The idea here could be that Paul is using this language that’s connected to the Levitical cult or the sacrificial cultic system in the Old Testament. God’s setting apart or consecrating appropriate blameless animals and sacrifices for his purposes, for his good, in order to represent that Israel is a people striving to be holy and honoring God because he is, likewise, holy. As a result, this could refer to an idea of positionally that we’re holy in terms of our status before God because we’re in Christ. But it seems to me that that idea is not the only idea that’s here in the text.

It seems to me that the idea is also that God, in fact, has chosen us to be—this is the word I will use—to be ‘godly.’ In Leviticus chapter 16 [recte chapters 19 and 20]—the whole book of Leviticus, not just chapter 16 [recte chapters 19 and 20]—the whole book of Leviticus emphasizes God speaking to Israel saying you be holy because I am holy. In 1 Peter, Peter picks up on this language as well. He basically tells these Christians who are scattered throughout the diaspora—he exhorts them to be what you are. “As you suffer for your faith in Christ, be what you are, namely, the people of God. Live a holy life just as the one who called you is holy, you likewise be holy.”

Certainly, we are righteous in Christ positionally. We are holy in Christ positionally. We are blameless in Christ positionally. But because that’s true, I think here’s also the expectation that God chose us to be a people who lives godly lives. He didn’t simply choose us to have a location in Christ that places us in a position of righteousness. He did that, but he also chose us in Christ to be holy, to be godly. Otherwise, why in the world does he spend Ephesians 4:17 to the end of chapter 5 exhorting the Ephesians to live a godly life? Why does he spend time in Ephesians 2:10, for example, emphasizing that we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God “prepared beforehand” so that we would walk in them. He loves the verb “to walk.”

Notice in Ephesians 2:10, God created us in Christ “for good works.” These works were “prepared beforehand” by God. Prepared when? Well, when God chose us before the foundation of the world, he chose us for the purpose of being godly. In fact, notice back in verse 3: This is a spiritual blessing, a blessing that comes by means of the Spirit. That’s where he goes, isn’t it? In chapter 2 and following, he talks about how we were raised from death to life using language that flows out of Ezekiel 36 and 37. So these works aren’t human-generated works.

They are Spirit-empowered works. They are works that are generated by the Spirit who is our seal, which he talks about in Ephesians 1 in the doxology. So, Paul says, praise God that he chose us in Christ to be godly.

A quick word of application here, saints. People often ask themselves, “how do I know I’m a Christian?” That’s a great question. I ask myself that constantly. There is unhelpful introspection, but there’s also helpful introspection where we take spiritual evaluation of our lives and we look at our lives and our pattern of living and moving and being in the world. We ask ourselves, are those things consistent with the Christian life? When I ask myself, “How do I know I’m a Christian?” I answer it by giving at least these two answers: Number one, I say, “I believe I’m a Christian because I believe what the Bible says about Jesus.” And number two, because with God’s help, I’m trying to follow him. 

One thing we do when we follow him is we confess our sins. We are convicted of our sin. We have to apologize to people. We have to ask the Lord to help us be patient. We have to pursue unity in the body, the bond of unity, and to keep the peace in the body. We have to make sacrifices. We have to do the kind of things that reflect that our lives are yielded to King Jesus. Brothers and sisters, no one has any confidence or should have any confidence that he or she is a follower of Jesus who is living in rebellion against the gospel. And notice how I phrase that “rebellion against the gospel.” “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Peter sinned, did he not? When he tried to persuade Jesus not to go to the cross, Jesus’ response to Peter was “get behind me, Satan!” (Matthew 16:23; Mark 8:33). He sinned. He sinned when he denied the Lord three times. But he did not live in rebellion against the gospel.

Judas is a different category, however. He turned away from Jesus, and he fell away and never returned. So, a word I think practically here for us all is that God choosing us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and to be blameless is motivation for us to pursue holiness and godliness in the real world. It is true that we are righteous in Christ. We are blameless in Christ. But it’s also true that God redeemed us to be sanctified, set apart, people of God living in a dark world as bright lights, as godly people. That’s what Paul says, I think, in verse 4. This is supported by the fact that when you look back to Deuteronomy 7, one of the things Moses constantly says to Israel is that God chose you for this purpose. And he’s already argued in Leviticus that you need to therefore be godly.

You got chosen to be his people, to be a holy people, a people possessed for his purposes and for his glory. So, in verse four, he praises God that he chose us to be godly. 

Good news! I am not left alone to try to live the Christian life. I was raised in a context wherein it was drilled—and I’m glad it was drilled into my brain—that I need to work hard and not make any excuses, not look for opportunities because of challenges or disadvantages that one might experience growing up in Appalachia as I did. It was drilled that challenges or disadvantages are not reasons for which we ought not to work hard and pursue the things that we think we should pursue in terms of career, jobs, and so forth. I have this mindset where I find myself thinking, “Well, I’ve just got to work harder and harder in the Christian life and harder and harder and harder and harder and harder.” I can find myself trying to live the Christian life honestly, sometimes without God helping me. 

What I’m not saying, however, is that just pull up your own bootstraps and just go be godly. I’m saying that godliness is the reason for which God predestined us to be saved. Therefore, we need practically to lean in to these supernatural spiritual blessings that God gives us, some of which would include things like the Spirit, the church, and the various means of grace as a means by which we pursue this holy and blameless life. One preacher said it this way: “If we don’t pursue godliness in our daily Christian life, there will not be any godliness in our daily Christian life.” God chose us for this end. It is absolutely—I’m still applying the text here—outside of Paul’s theology for a believer to say something like this: “Well, I’m just a sinner and that’s just the way it is. So, things just have to keep going on this way in my life. I have no victory over my sin.” Practically, Paul would say, “No, not only do you have victory, but you have resurrection Spirit-empowered power—that’s coming in a moment—by which to live out God’s choice of us in Christ, to be holy and blameless.” We ought not to be content with ungodliness as believers because God chose us for this end.