Ephesians - Lesson 14

Now, notice he says the immeasurable riches of his grace. He uses this word often in the letter. First time he used it was in chapter 1, verse 2. The word for grace here, again, you should think of gift.

I want to repeat what I said about gift in previous lectures, that when we think in the West about grace, we tend to think of it as something that we receive without an expectation of a return. Or as one scholar has said, we think of grace as something we receive with no strings attached. Unfortunately, we've misunderstood, I think, often what grace is in the context of Paul's ancient world.

As I said, a recent New Testament scholar named John Barclay helps us here when he thinks about grace, and he situates it in this ancient context of benefaction or gift-giving. In the ancient world, the concept of a gift was a binding contract. So if I gave a gift to somebody, I know when the recipient of that gift would have known that the gift requires a response, required reciprocity.

And in the ancient world, those who gave gifts would give them to worthy recipients, worthy recipients, because in the ancient world, the only one who could really give the return that was deserved was the one who had the ability socially to give some kind of honor that can be perceived in society. That honor would be maybe an inscription to say, thank you to this official for giving me this gift. We somewhat see this in the modern world when we see names on buildings.

You have a donor who gives money, and there's a name put on a building to say thank you to that donor. It's a way that we show honor of the gift. Well, in Paul's world, you had this gift-giving and receiving of gifts in a way that showed reciprocity, reciprocity and honor.

But Barclay also talks about how the rejection of the gift was an action of dishonor, or the refusal to reciprocate the recipient or the giver of the gift with some form of honor was also shameful. So the way this often worked was that both the giver and the receiver understand there's a bonding taking place between the giving of the gift, the receiving of the gift that results in the appropriate reciprocation. So if Paul's understanding of grace fits within that context, and I think it does, that he's The gift of predestination, the gift of the Spirit, the gift of Christ, and all the redemptive promises that are linked with Christ, that our election even is election in love in Christ.

So God has chosen to give us this gift, and this gift, what does it do? It binds us eschatologically to Jesus, and it results in a certain response, which you'll come to here in a moment. The response of the gift is a response of living in obedience to the one who gave the gift. But before he goes there, he says, okay, let me give you a reason why you're saved by grace.

Verse 8, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Now, a few things here about verse 8. Notice he says, you are saved by grace, there's gift language again, through faith. Let's say a word about saved here, to save. When Paul talks, when he uses the verb or the noun salvation or the verb to save, he primarily uses it to talk about a future, a future event that's invaded the present evil age.

So salvation and the verb to save refers in Paul, usually, I think it's fair to say every time he uses the verb to save, it refers to deliverance from God's wrath. He's already supported that, I think, by the fact that he said we were children of wrath when we were dead in trespasses and sins, until God made us alive together with Christ. Now we're not children of wrath, we are children of the light, which we'll talk about later in the letter.

So because we are in Christ and God made us alive together with Christ, we've received the gospel of our salvation and we are sealed with the Spirit, we will be saved from God's wrath. But notice this, notice that God's wrath is yet to come. But Paul says, oh, we're saved right now from it.

So what will be true, deliverance from God's wrath in the future, it's already true right now. Why? Because the promise of future salvation has broken into this present evil age by means of the death and resurrection of Jesus and the indwelling presence and power of the Spirit. So when God raises us from the dead and seats us with Christ, we are saved from God's future wrath right now because we are safe in Jesus who is reigning in resurrection power right now.

So it's OK for us to say, as I often say, I got saved when I was 17 years old on April the 22nd, 1996. And it's also true that I am safe from God's wrath right now. I don't have to live my life worried about whether I will go to hell.

Because I'm trusting in Jesus. Now, what we know later on in the letter is that one reason for anxiety about the future would be if we are living in disobedience and rebellion against the gospel. That's why we have warnings in the Bible.

The warnings come to believers and they serve as a means to motivate believers to turn around from their sin and to trust in Christ afresh and to follow him. But genuine believers, yes, we struggle. We fight.

We battle. But genuine believers, we don't walk away from the gospel. We don't rebel against Jesus.

Genuine believers can be confident in Christ Jesus. We are saved and will be saved from God's wrath in the future. And he says, you are saved.

Look how we're saved. By means of the gift that is basically Christ. Christ is the gift.

We're saved by God's gift of Christ. God's gift that expects a response by grace through faith. And this next statement here, and this not from you, the gift of God question for us here.

What is the reference of the reference of the word this? We're saved by grace through faith. So two nouns, grace and faith. This is not from you, but the gift of God.

Is he saying the grace is not from you? Is he saying the faith is not from you? Or is it referring to both? It seems to me in context, they should referring to both. And in other words, when Paul says we're saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves, he means that God's gift. And faith are not our own doing.

That the reason this is good news. The reason why we're saved has nothing to do with our ability to make a smart decision. It has everything to do with God.

Giving us a gift. We are saved by grace through faith. So here's what he's saying.

We're saved by grace through faith. And this salvation experience is not your own doing. It is all the gift of God.

The grace comes from God. The faith is a gift from God. It's all the gift from God.

God gives us the faith with the gift of Christ. And both the gift and the faith is a gift or are a gift. So this is good news because that reminds us that while we certainly have a responsibility as believers to preach the gospel, to teach the gospel, that ultimately God is the one who saves.

And notice he says you're saved by grace through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift that comes from God.

Salvation is a gift from God. God gifts sinners with salvation. It's not as a result, verse 9, of works so that no one may boast.

In the ancient world, there are examples of Jews and Gentiles boasting in certain things. Boasting in the case of Jews in the law, the case of Gentiles boasting in other things, whether they're boasting in rhetorical strength or boasting in the fact that they're not weak. You find evidence of Jews and Gentiles boasting.

In fact, even in the Hebrew Scriptures, you see Jeremiah saying to Israel that the one who boasts boasts in the Lord, not in his own might, not in his own strength. So one thing Paul is reminding these Gentile Christians is that they received salvation as a gift from God, and it's not as a result of anything they did. So that as a result, their boast cannot be in their selves.

It's important that you realize that the word works here is not the word that's describing works of the law. Now, what I'm saying is that when Paul talks about works of the law, he does use the Greek term that's here in that phrase to talk about works of law. But works of law is a different statement than works here.

The Gentiles have no concern about doing works of law. We have no evidence in Ephesians that these Gentiles are trying to do works of law. So he's not pitting.

He's not pitting. Paul, that is he's not pitting Christianity, which is grace filled in Judaism, which is not grace against each other. There's this old paradigm that thankfully has been shattered in scholarship, where some particular readers of Judaism have argued that Judaism had no grace and that Christianity was all grace.

And so when Paul talks about not by works, but by grace, he's pitting Judaism that didn't have any grace and Christianity that had grace against each other. There are all sorts of problems with that proposition. One being Jesus himself was not a Christian, but he was within Judaism.

Jesus was a Jew. But another problem is, is that there's nothing in the text that suggests that he's talking about works of the law that are bad because they are coming out of a Judaism that doesn't have grace. There's no evidence in the text at all that he's talking about that.

At the basic level, his point here is simply that there was no work that they did as Gentiles who were pagans. Nothing in their economic life, nothing in their societal life, nothing in their religious life. They worship Artemis.

There's nothing that they did, no work that they performed, no cultic sacrifices they would offer to pagan deities that granted them this salvation. They did not have to pay off the gods in order to receive this salvation. It's a gift from God.

God himself took the initiative and gave them salvation by grace through faith so that they and so that no one would, in fact, boast in God. Now, verse 10, he gives us a reason why there's no, excuse me, no one would boast in themselves, but everyone boasts in God. In verse 10, he now says, for we, we are his workmanship.

So he's still emphasizing here the fact that salvation is a gift from God, that God, in other words, verse 10, God worked. We are his workmanship. Now notice this verse 10, created in Christ Jesus for good works.

So clearly he's not anti-good works. There's this mindset that some Christians have today that good works are a bad thing. No, good works are a great thing.

In fact, without them, you will not inherit the kingdom of God. Paul's going to say in chapter five, but notice in chapter five, he says, look, you were created in Christ for this purpose. What do you mean, Paul? I was created.

We were created in Christ for good works. He means we were created afresh. He's talking about new creation.

He's talking about the fact that we are created into this new humanity. We'll see it further in chapter two, verses 11 through 22, when he says that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins in order to bring Jew and Gentile into one new humanity. The two become one.

I think he's anticipating that conversation here when he says we Jews and Gentiles are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus. That is, we are one new humanity created afresh, and we were created by God for good works. And these good works are works that you see outlined at the very least in chapters four and five and six, where he exhorts the Ephesians to walk in a manner worthy of their calling.

And these good works are good works which God prepared beforehand. By beforehand, he means, I think, before the foundation of the world. That fits what you find in Ephesians chapter one, when he talks about God choosing us, predestining us to be holy and blameless.

Before we were even born, before we were conceived, God's choice of us to be in Christ was a choice for us to be godly. And God prepared those good works for us to walk in, he says, beforehand. He prepared those good works beforehand that we, verse 10, should walk in them.

There's that verb walk again, if you notice it there. So we walked in our trespasses and sins, living formally in accordance with the anti-God powers. But when God worked, he made us alive together with Christ.

God did this. God saved us by grace through faith. God gave us his gift, not by works, but because God wanted to do it.

And God did it so that God would recreate us for God's purposes. And God's purposes were for us to walk in good works, which God prepared before him. You notice how much Paul emphasizes God, theocentric soteriology here.

Salvation is all about God, God, God, God, God. Of course, it includes sinners whom he saves. But notice that the subject of the salvation experience is God himself.

The Christian life is not about me, it's about God. It's not about you, it's about God. The gospel is not about me, it's about God.

It's not about you, it's about God. Of course, the gospel includes the good news of salvation for sinners. But the good news is good news from God about Jesus Christ.

And God is the one who has designed to save a people for God's glory in God's way. And one way, and the way that God chose to do this was in Christ. And he does it himself by doing what we could not do by raising us from the dead.

This idea of new creation, when he says we are created in Christ for good works, while Paul emphasizes here the new creation of individuals, Jews and Gentiles, who are now part of the people of God, it's not limited to individuals. It also includes the entire creation. I think we see that in Isaiah 65, verses 17 through 25, where you have this new Jerusalem promise, as I said earlier.

And you also see glimpses of it as well in Ephesians, where you see Paul talking about this in chapter 2, 11 through 22, that this new people, this holy temple, Jew-Gentile together forming this new humanity as the people of God. We see it perhaps most clearly as it relates to the cosmic aspect of this new creation in him talking about God's kingdom, that those whom God has redeemed in Christ in chapter 5, and those who live and walk in a manner worthy of their calling are those who have an inheritance in the kingdom of God and of Christ. So that individual salvation right now is not simply about me having my sins forgiven, while that is foundational.

It's also about me and all of those who believe the gospel, having our sins forgiven, being rightly related to God vertically, but also being right related to one another horizontally. That's Ephesians 2, 11 through 22. But then also cosmically, there's a kingdom that's coming, that we will inherit, and of which we are part right now, and that kingdom must triumph over all the anti-God powers.

And so we have Paul saying here that as we are citizens of that kingdom, it's because God has worked in us to save us and to create in us good works that he's prepared us in which to walk. A couple applications here. Number one, I think this provides encouragement and hope in overcoming personal battles with sin.

As I've said before, every believer, every believer will fight against sin, and some believers struggle to love Jesus, struggle with experiencing personal victory over their different kinds of sins that they deal with in their lives. But the good news of salvation is that because God has raised Jesus from the dead and because he's recreated us in Christ, that he has given us supernatural resources by which to overcome and conquer the power of our own personal sin. So if you struggle with impatience, it might be hard to be patient, but you can, with God's help, take steps toward walking in patience.

If you struggle with some more severe sins that you ought not to be content with struggling with the sin, but you should know that you are empowered by the Spirit and you have supernatural resources that will enable you to have victory over those sins. It will be a fight. It will be a battle.

You will need accountability. You might need, in addition to biblical wisdom, but you might need someone who's trained to help you think about why you struggle in ways that require some more learning in addition to biblical and theological learning. You might have to see a counselor.

All those things God can use for his glory to help Christians fight and overcome their battles with sin. But here's my point. My point is that you have supernatural resources by which to have victory over sin because Paul says it here that God has created us in Christ for good works.

He's created us to walk in love and joy and patience and kindness and compassion and self-control. He's created us to walk in humility. It's hard.

It's a battle. We all fall short, but we have supernatural resources by which to do that. So, brothers and sisters, I would encourage you who are watching these lectures to make sure you are proactively fighting.

That's the second thing I want to say. The Christian life is not let go and let God. I do not like that statement.

It looks cute on a bumper sticker, but it's not Pauline. Of course, God works. He intervenes.

He breaks in. He disrupts the cosmos. He raises the dead.

He gives life. But there's no evidence in this letter where Paul invites us to be passive recipients. God initiates and causes and creates and recreates.

And because God liberates our will, he gives us a liberated agency. We therefore have the supernatural ability to be proactive and fight against the devil, Ephesians 6 and his lies, to be proactive and fight for joy, fight for peace, fight for love. We can do that.

It's not let go and let God. It is God has worked. He's intervened.

He's broken in to enable us by his power to fight and with his grace to win. And some of those victories might be very small, but they're still victories. Nevertheless, one victory might mean something as simple as you pray for your enemies.

And that shames the devil and that reminds him. That the kingdom of God has triumphed over all the anti-God powers, and that is a good work for which God has prepared us. To walk.

Questions. You talked earlier about. That were made alive in Christ, that were raised up with him, that were seated with Christ.

And because of that, that gives us. A way to live right now and shows us our position. With Christ.

And sometimes it doesn't feel like that's where we are. When you have people in your life that have power over you that are evil. Or when you struggle with health or with finances or things like that.

But. As we're faithful to use God's power to fight those things, we can see victories. Like praying for somebody that is in your life.

That's a real enemy of you and to be able to pray in a way that. You're praying God's spirit for their life or things like that. But that's hard and sometimes it doesn't feel like we're living in that place.

Yes. Yes, very good. I couldn't have said that any better.

I feel that in my own walk. Where sometimes my prayers are. Father.

I know you say I have victory in Christ. But right now I don't want to love the people you say I should love. But God helped me to get to the place where I can love them.

And. That's not always easy. It's hard and what that might look like is going to be different from one person to the next.

There are people that. I can love, but that doesn't mean I will ever spend any time with them because of the pain that they caused me was too severe. And I need to protect my heart.

And you can love in a healthy way. I do believe that I think you can love in a healthy way from a distance certain people. Especially people who have severely harmed you and you cannot trust them.

He does not say trust your enemies. Says love your enemies. And in fact, Jesus said, I mean, John says that Jesus did not entrust himself to any man because he knew what was in a man.

But yet he loved them. They didn't trust everybody. So what I want to do, however, is I want to retaliate evil for evil.

And when I'm in that place, I need the Lord to help me get to a place where I admit that's where I am. Lord, I'm here. I want to retaliate, but don't let me.

And then and then pray, Lord. Not only don't let me retaliate evil for evil, even though I want to because I want to justify myself. Move me to a place where I can pray for them.

And then I pray for them. So I don't wait for God to zap me with the desire to pray for them. I say, Lord, help me pray for them.

And then I'll just I might grind my teeth as I do it. But I'll say, Lord, show them favor. Judge them if they don't repent, but also be merciful to them if they do that.

That's I think that steps toward what Paul's inviting us to lean into. Let me clarify on that point with loving your enemies. This doesn't this doesn't mean.

That to love your enemies means you would not call the police on them. You can love your enemies and call the police on them at the same time if they've committed a crime against you. You can love your enemies and testify against them in the court of law.

I think loving your enemies at the very basic level would be that you don't retaliate evil with evil. But that is hard. And so then.

Even though my emotions are telling me and my desires that we talked about those desires earlier, my desires are desires that are not compelled toward loving my enemies or being or forgiving them if they repent. That's even for me harder when someone says, I've recognized I've harmed you and I'm sorry. I don't just naturally say, well, I forgive forgiveness as a process.

You have to process what does that mean for me to forgive them and for that person to be sorry that they've wounded me. But what the Spirit, I think, does in giving us these supernatural resources, I think he helps us see this struggle is real. That's a good thing.

It's not good for me to be unaware that here's a tension I'm feeling and I know it's not right. The fact that I feel the tension, I know what the scriptures say, I know I need to get there. But for some reason, I'm finding a hard time getting there.

But I want to get there, or at least I want to want to get there at some point. I want to be able to want to get there. That's that the Spirit is in that, I think, at some level where I'm recognizing what God has invited me to do and looking for ways within boundaries and and supernatural.

Opportunities to do that in a way that will bring him honor and part of that process might mean confessing my sins to him where I've fallen short in that, you know, I don't have the perspective that if you just read the Bible and believe the gospel, it's like a magic peel and everything in life is just smooth and relationships are just smooth. Life doesn't work that way. This is a hard, long walk, a path.

And so here's the question I want to ask myself. Am I on the path of walking in a manner worthy of my calling? It might not have worked out as well as I would have hoped here. But what about here? And try not to commit the same mistakes that I committed here, here.

And as the Lord works out opportunities, let's try to rectify this over here. But let's not bring the back of what happened in that conversation or in in in that experience. Here, I think that's the work of a work of the spirit as we're walking in good works, which God has prepared for us.

So that I don't begin to view every interaction with people based on the one person over here that hurt me. But that's hard. Sometimes our prayer lives might need to be, Lord, you say to love our enemies, but I don't love my enemies.

Help me to love them. I think that's the work of the spirit. Help me to love them in a wise way.