Ephesians - Lesson 5

Before we continue working through the doxology, I want to say another word about practical application of these concepts of election and predestination. I want to say a practical word about human responsibility. Again, it's very easy to hear comments about God choosing and determining predestining things to take place with respect to salvation and conclude that therefore we we can live any way we want to live or we don't have any personal responsibility.

But that is not, in fact, what you see in any of the letters wherein Paul talks about predestination and election. And it's certainly not what you see in Ephesians, because you have, as I've said before, multiple verses in chapters four and five, where Paul in chapter six as well exhorts the the Ephesians to live a certain way. He doesn't say, well, God's predestined you to be what you are, therefore don't take personal responsibility.

But instead, he exhorts them to live in a responsible, godly way. Let's just see a quick example of this. I've referred to it before in just general reference, but let me just give you this specific verse so you can see it.

417, 418 and 419. These are three verses of many where Paul gives them clear exhortations to obey. He says in verse 17, therefore I say this and I testify in the Lord that you no longer walk.

Now, he loves that that verb to walk as a as a verb that provides us a metaphor for the Christian life. It's a walk with the Lord. And walking, he associates it with a pattern of living in a godly way.

That's why he goes on and says that you walk not any longer as the Gentiles walk. Now, remember, they're Gentiles. And what he's saying is that you are a transformed Gentile.

You can't live, that's what he means by walk. You can't live in an ungodly way anymore. You can't practice idolatry.

You can't practice sexual sin. You can't gossip, slander. You can't misrepresent.

You can't be divisive. The pattern of behavior that was consistent with an immoral Gentile way of life. Paul is saying you can't walk that way anymore.

But instead, you you ought to walk as you learn Christ, he'll say a little bit later. But in verse 20, verse 18, rather, he says you were in dark, you were darkened in your understanding. You were separated from from life, from God because of the ignorance which is in them that is Gentiles because of the hardness of their heart.

So he's clearly saying to them, you have a personal responsibility. You have personal agency to choose to live in a godly way because chapter two, God raised you from death to life because chapter one, God chose you in Christ. So it's important for us to remember that election is true.

Predestination is true. And human responsibility is also true that I am responsible for every decision that I make. And I can never blame God's predestination for making bad decisions because the Bible doesn't do that.

So if I chose not to follow Jesus, that's my bad choice. When I rejected Jesus prior to becoming a Christian, that was my disobedience. That's true.

I was not exercising human responsibility in a way that I could because of my deadness and trespasses and sins. That's true. But I was still morally responsible to make a decision to believe in the gospel.

The difference is God's predestination in election and in his work in my heart through the preaching of the gospel created life in me so that I could respond. He gave me the ability to respond. He gave me the agency to respond.

Whereas before I was dead in trespasses and sins, I was still morally responsible to make a real decision for Jesus. The difference is I could not take steps toward God unless God worked in me and God's work in me was subsequent to God's predestination of me unto salvation in Christ. So I want you to hear the words about human responsibility.

It's very important as well when we think about living the Christian life, that the Christian life is a walk with God. Of course, we also have metaphors like warfare and running and sowing and these sorts of things. But the basic point I'm making is that it's not let go and let God.

That's not what the Christian life is. It is God has worked for us and in us, and he's given us the supernatural ability to to live a life pleasing to him. I wrote a book on Galatians called Ethics and the Spirit and Eternal Life in Galatians, Paul's vision for the Christian life.

And in that book, I make that very point from Galatians that God works in his people and enables them to live a godly life. We have the freedom in Christ to do that and we are expected to make responsible decisions for Christ and predestination and election do not mean that we're therefore irresponsible, but rather we are responsible to make the right decisions and we can't blame God when we don't. It's a very important point to remember in terms of God's sovereignty and predestination and election.

And we turn now back to chapter one, looking at verse seven. So he's made the statement, the statements that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. He's elected us in love.

He's predestined us into adoption. Verse five. He did this for the praise of his glorious grace, the praise of his gift.

He gave us the gift of the gospel and the beloved one in Jesus Christ. And that one, verse seven, he's going to take another Old Testament concept that's applied to Israel and apply it to Jews and Gentiles in Christ. And he says, in whom the whom refers to Jesus, in whom we have redemption.

Now, again, the we is not limited to Jewish people, but it includes includes Gentiles as well. And he he makes the point here that Jews and Gentiles in Christ have have redemption. And notice how we have redemption.

We have redemption through his blood. And he he defines redemption as the forgiveness of our trespasses. Now, let me just back up and talk about redemption for a moment.

This word redemption, you'll find it. If you look in the Old Testament, numerous places, you'll find it in Deuteronomy. You'll find it in Deuteronomy seven.

You find it in Exodus. The example I love to give is the example of God delivering Israel from Egyptian slavery. Israel is in bondage.

They are not in the promised land when you come to the end of Genesis and the beginning of Exodus. And God promised Abraham a land. And as you know, the story, the new Pharaoh did not know Joseph and Israel finds herself in bondage because of her ability to procreate at a at a fast pace in the narrative of Exodus.

And they're enslaved and bondage. God raises up Moses, uses him in a miraculous way to be a means by which he delivers Israel from Egyptian slavery. When you get to chapter 15 of Exodus, after God delivers Israel and destroys Pharaoh and his army in the sea, in chapter 15, Israel offers a praise to God.

Exodus 15 is a hymn in which they praise God for his sovereign power displayed through their redemption. And there's language in that prayer that talks about being purchased, being redeemed. So the idea of redemption is really an economic term where.

In the case of Exodus, God, God delivered Israel, redeemed Israel, purchased Israel, bought Israel back, if you will, out of Egyptian slavery. But he didn't do so with money. He did so by means of his power and by destroying the Egyptians and Pharaoh.

In this particular example, redemption is not applied to Israel coming out of slavery, crossing the Jordan, heading toward the promise or crossing the Red Sea, excuse me, heading toward the promised land. Redemption is now applied to Jews and Gentiles in Christ who are headed toward an eschatological kingdom. It is a kingdom that is eternal, that has broken into this present evil age.

And it's already here because Jesus is the king and he's come. But it's not yet fully realized because Jesus is reigning over heaven, over all things in heaven and earth right now. And we're awaiting him to come a second time from heaven to earth to reign over the not yet aspect of the kingdom.

But the point here still remains that those in Christ are redeemed and those in Christ who are redeemed, they're redeemed not from physical slavery. They're redeemed from spiritual bondage. We know this later in the verse because he says the redemption is, verse seven, the forgiveness of trespasses.

Now, the word trespass is a particular kind of sin. Paul pairs trespasses and sins together in chapter two to talk about being dead in trespasses and sins. And then he'll speak about trespasses again.

So I take it that when he uses the word trespasses here, he's not only talking about transgressing the law, which is how he usually uses trespasses, because to trespass a law is a particular kind of sin, whereas one can sin without trespassing a specific command that's given. So, for example, in the book of Genesis, we know that Cain sinned when he murdered his brother Abel. We know that because God brought judgment upon him.

Of course, God was also merciful to him, but he did bring judgment upon him. And we also know he sinned because he murdered someone created in the image of God. But technically, he did not transgress a commandment that said thou shalt not murder.

That commandment wasn't given yet, but he did sin. So then when the law enters history at Sinai and you have a commandment that says do not murder, when you murder someone, that is a specific kind of sin, namely a transgression of a revealed law or prohibition. Now, in Ephesians, Paul seems to use, however, transgressions and sins synonymously so that, for example, in chapter two, he says, verse one, you all were dead in trespasses and in your sins.

So the two words occur together, trespasses and sins. But then later on in the text, he'll say, and we were dead in trespasses. And he doesn't use the word trespasses and sins.

Furthermore, when he says in verse one, you were dead in trespasses and sins. In verse two, he says, in which you formally walk. Now, here's the tricky thing about translations.

In verse two, the word which you can tell in the Greek text, that word refers back to the sins, not to the transgressions in terms of the form of the word which in the Greek text. But here's the point I'm making, that he's using transgressions and sins synonymously so that when he talks about sins being something in which they walked, Paul is using with the word sins, the concept of transgressions. So that sins and transgressions, Paul uses synonymously in the letter.

The point that I'm making here with respect to the redemption pieces is that he's emphasizing a greater redemption because it's redemption from from spiritual bondage. We have redemption through Jesus's blood. And here's the redemption, the forgiveness of trespasses or sins.

So Paul's point here is, is that in Christ we experience liberation, freedom from sins. Sins that we committed, transgressions that we've committed. We are dead in our sins and will die because of them unless God redeems us from them.

And notice he not only tells us or he both he tells us that that redemption is the forgiveness of sins. It's a spiritual redemption from a spiritual bondage. But notice the means by which the redemption takes place is through his blood, that is through Jesus's blood, because he just said in verse six, we receive this gift of grace in the beloved one.

And then the beloved one is the in whom in verse seven. So in whom in the beloved one in Christ, we have the redemption through his blood. Very important point here.

Again, think with me about the Exodus. God did tell Israel to sacrifice a Passover lamb and to sprinkle that blood on their homes as a symbol of those who are trusting in Yahweh so that when Yahweh comes to the home, visits the home with judgment, he'll see the blood and pass over the house who has blood covering the entrance or the door. And those who do not, they suffer death.

But technically, the blood of that Passover lamb did not provide Israel forgiveness for her sins. In fact, we see this in the Old Testament itself when Leviticus comes to them. You see that God outlines specific sacrifices regarding sin and specific sacrifices called sin offerings that Israel needed to offer.

But then then in Leviticus 16, they had to celebrate Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement, which was a ritual that reminded them every year that they needed to trust in God. Yes, but that they needed their sins forgiven. So those those normal sacrifices, those those regular sacrifices offered throughout the year were insufficient to deal with the sin problem because you had to celebrate the Yom Kippur ritual.

But the Yom Kippur ritual doesn't doesn't complete the sin problem because they had to do that every year in addition to the other sacrifices. And Hebrews comes along and says to us, reflecting upon the sacrificial system, that the Old Testament sacrifices reminded Israel that Israel was in sin. There was a reminder of one's sin through practicing the sacrificial rituals.

But those rituals did not actually atone for sin, provide forgiveness of sins. But to the contrary, Paul says here as he applies this Exodus language to Jesus's redemption and this Levitical cultic language to Jesus's redemption, he reminds us that we have redemption from our sins through the blood of Jesus. I do believe that this verse is an example that Jesus's death is a penal substitutionary death.

That is, he's dying not for his personal sins. He had no sins. He's not dying for a noble nation in a patriotic death, which was a common death in the ancient world.

But instead he is dying for people. He died for people who were dead in trespasses and sins. He died for people who need forgiveness from their sins.

His death was the payment offered by God and the one he voluntarily gave to deal with sin. His blood, this is good news, his blood, which is a way of talking about his death, was God's sacrifice to deal with the eternal sin problem that Jews and Gentiles have before God. And so Paul can say that in him, we Jews and Gentiles have redemption through his blood, Jesus's blood, as the old hymn says, Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe.

Sin has left a crimson stain, but he has washed it, made it white as snow. And the other hymn that emphasizes what can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Oh, precious is that flow that makes me white as snow. No other fount that I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus. Paul makes the point here that Jews and Gentiles who are chosen in love, predestined in Christ, unto adoption are the ones who receive this redemption, namely the forgiveness of our sins.

He continues in verse 7 and says that he did this, we have this redemption in accordance with the riches or the wealth of his gift. Notice how he again mentions this language of gift or grace. Again, verse 2, he talks about grace to you and he mentions the grace or the gift again in verse 7, that we are in verse 6, excuse me, that the glorious nature of God's gift is God bestowed upon us in Christ.

And now in verse 7, that God redeemed us in Christ through Christ's blood to deal with our sins in accordance with or corresponding to the wealth of his gift. God is a wealthy God, full of abundant grace to give in Christ. So notice that language there, the abundance or the wealth of his gift.

Everybody has limited resources, although some has more resources than others. But God does not have limited resources. He has an abundant wealth of resources in Christ.

A powerful point that he's making here in verse 7 is that the wealth, the riches, namely his gift, that his gift is a gift that grants to us this redemption through Jesus. It's so important to realize that salvation is not a work that we earn. There's nothing that we can do.

I'm applying the text now. There's nothing that we can do to earn God's favor. Again, I have a mindset of hard work and hard work is great.

We should work hard and steward our bodies and minds and our gifts to serve the Lord well in what we do vocationally or anything that we do in life. We should always do it, do all things for the glory of God. But the gospel is not a gospel that says work hard to earn the forgiveness of your sins.

The gospel is a gospel that tells us we have no amount of work that we can do to earn God's forgiveness. But God himself has done the work for us in Christ through his blood to give us the wealth of his gift, which, verse 8, he abounded toward us in all wisdom and insight. I think he means his wisdom and insight.

This is important because as we think about, as we have thought about election and predestination, why would God do this? Well, for his glory. Other than that, I have no clear answer. But we do know from verses like this, particularly verse 8, we know that God is wise and insightful, that he knows perfectly why he does what he does, and he chooses to do what he does for reasons that are known to himself.

Deuteronomy makes the point that the secret things belong to the Lord. And so one helpful thing here, I think, that we see is that election and predestination, God's choosing of us in Christ, his predetermining us in Christ, his redemption of us in Christ through the blood of Jesus, is in accordance with his gift, and he abounded this gift toward us. He increased this gift toward us by means of all wisdom and insight.

God knows what God is doing for God's glory is a point I think Paul wants us to make. So again, to apply these sorts of things, this should motivate us, yes, to worship God. Do we think about, do we think about the miraculous nature of our salvation? I've been a Christian for several years now since I was 17 years old.

And as I've gotten older in my Christian faith, I've become accustomed to being a Christian, where sometimes some of the things that moved me in my affections, I'm just used to them now, and they don't move me in the same way. And I have to ask the Lord to stir up those affections and move me. And there are times when, thankfully, he answers that prayer, and he just reminds me, he allows me to reflect upon my life before I knew Christ, and how my life would have ended very differently if he did not intervene in 1996 to change my life.

And God did this in this way because he is perfectly wise and has great insight. And that should move us to praise him for manifesting his sovereign wisdom in this way in salvation. And also, I think this could motivate us to trust God, to trust God when people don't respond to the gospel right away, to trust God when people don't receive our preaching if we preach, or our teaching if we teach, or our discipleship if we disciple immediately.

And it should motivate us and move us to know that God is God, and let's entrust God to do the work that God wants to do as we believe that his wisdom is best. Thirdly, I think it reminds us here that we don't have to be cool or hip to reach the current generation. There are, unfortunately, ways in which you can try to reach people with the gospel that have cool stuff, but no gospel stuff.

The gospel is the power of God and salvation unto everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Of course, when the culture changes, we have to look at the world in which we live and think of fresh ways to apply the old message, the old story, into a contemporary context. Absolutely, we must all interpret the culture in which we live and contextualize the gospel.

We all have to do that as good Christians living in a secular society that is contrary to the gospel. But my point is, is that we must not distrust God's wisdom, God's design to be the means by which, distrust his design as the means by which the gospel will penetrate dead hearts. But God is wise and insightful enough to save people, to choose to save people.

And he's going to do this, as we'll see in a moment, through the gospel, not by being cool and trendy and hip. Verse nine now, he focuses on a phrase that pops up later in the letter. He talks about the mystery of God's will.

So in verse nine, he says, God made known to us the mystery of his will. Now, for mystery here, the question is, what does he mean by mystery? I love watching movies that are mysterious, that have a certain plot that's hard to figure out. And you have to watch the whole thing to figure out what's happening.

And I always miss what I think is the plot and how the mystery is going to be uncovered and revealed. I always identify the wrong person as the person who is the villain in the story. And the mystery of the show is, who is the villain? Well, you have to wait until the end of the story or the movie to see that.

So when we think about mystery in a contemporary context, we often think of mystery as something that's hard to figure out or understand. And in the ancient world, they had this understanding in the Ephesian context, even this mystery. There were mystery cults where things that were unknown to those outside of the community didn't know what people in the community didn't know what was happening in those mystery cults.

They were unknown. They were mysterious in a puzzling way. But that's not how Paul is using the term mystery here.

When Paul talks about the mystery of his will, he means, I think, that something was previously hidden and now it's revealed. So it's not something that can't be figured out, but it's something that God gave glimpses and foreshadowings of in the Old Testament. But now he's clearly revealed it in this age of salvation history.

And he says he made known to us the mystery of his will. Now, here's a question. What's the mystery of his will? I think the answer to that question comes actually in verse 10 when he talks about unifying all things in Christ.

So you actually, in my view, have to skip over some of the things in verse 9 and verse 10 to see what he means by the mystery. So this is how I'll read the mystery. He made known to us the mystery of his will, namely, to unify or to sum up, I like unify, all things in Christ.

And he defines those all things, things in the heavenly places and things upon the earth in him. So the question then is, is what is the mystery? The mystery is God's eternal plan to unite all things in heaven and earth in Jesus. Some of those all things will be Jew and Gentile unity.

Some of those all things will be the regeneration of the cosmos. Some of those all things will be God's sovereign, comprehensive rule over everything in Christ and Jews and Gentiles reigning with God in Christ. Notice verse 9, he made known to us the mystery of his will, his will to do what? I think his will to save Jews and Gentiles, to make them part of his one new humanity and to redeem the cosmos and to give them this as an inheritance.

So he says in verse 9, notice it further, he made known to us the mystery of his will, made known to us this mystery according to his good pleasure. That's the second time by my count, he talks about good pleasure. In verse 5, he says God predestined us into adoption corresponding to the good pleasure of his will, his desire.

And now in verse 9, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure. So notice again, the mystery revealed to us, Jews and Gentiles in Christ, that we're unified in Christ and that all things are united in Christ has been revealed to us because it was God's good desire. And this good pleasure, notice it in verse 9, he purposed it in him.

It was God's eternal purpose to do it in Christ. Adam was not plan A and then Jesus plan B. It was always from the foundation of the world, God's design to do this in Christ for verse 10, the management of, or the stewardship of, of the fullness of time. It's an interesting statement there.

I think this statement should be interpreted in light of Galatians chapter 3 verse 4. If you go to Galatians 3 verse 4, or Galatians 4 verse 4, excuse me, Galatians 4 verse 4, Paul says something very similar here in chapter 4 verse 1, he uses this, this temporal language regarding an heir and a slave, this temporary period of time when heirs who are the future recipients of the promises of the inheritance from the father, that there's a period of time when the heirs are under the authority of, of another person, of a pedagogue or a steward, verse 2, or a manager, that's the word there. He is under stewards and managers, similar word that's used in Ephesians. And then Paul goes on and makes reference here to the, the fact that we, verse 3, were also enslaved under the elementary principles of the world when we were infants, that is, when we were outside of faith in Christ.

But when the fullness, here it is right here, but when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his son to be born from a woman, to be born under the law, to redeem those under the law so that we would receive the adoption. So it's no similar themes here, redemption, fullness of time, adoption. You go back to Ephesians chapter 1, what is Paul saying here? He's saying God made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ.

He purposed it in Christ for the purpose of this, this management of the fullness of the times, this stewardship of the fullness of the times that in God's, in God's salvation historical plan, it was his design in the, in the right time to bring about Christ to work out this vision for Jews and Gentiles and the cosmos. That is namely that the mystery to be summed up, to be unified in Christ is God's design for the fullness of time. So practically again, thinking about the text in a practical way, that God has by his sovereign power design decided to work out the whole scope of redemption for Jews and Gentiles in Christ.

He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. He predestined us in Christ for adoption. He provided for us forgiveness of sins.

He bestowed upon us the wealth of his gift and he made known to us the mystery of his will that Jews and Gentiles, all things in heaven and the earth will be united, unified in Christ Jesus. And this was his plan to take place in the appropriate time when he desired it to be worked out in, in history. We'll return back to Ephesians chapter one in verse, verse 10 and 11, well, verse 10 first, before we work through verse 11 and think through once again some, some practical applications before we get into the Q and A time.

But number one, practical application is the God's plan. God's plan of redemption is in Christ Jesus. I'm going to point your attention to once again in verses in verse nine and then in verse 10, where he talks about making known to us the mystery of his will.

And then verse 10, he mentions to, to unite all things in Christ. I keep wanting to emphasize this because it's so important that the exclusivity of Jesus Christ, that in Christ Jesus alone is, is the means by which God has always desired and designed to unite Jews and Gentiles in Christ and unite all things in heaven and earth in Christ. So that in Ephesians, you see that of course, individuals at the horizontal level are reconciled to God in Christ and individuals at the vertical level have their sins forgiven and they rightly relate to God in Christ.

But there's also this cosmic restoration that takes place in Christ as, as God in Christ is uniting, as Paul says here, all things in heaven and upon the earth right now, the cosmos is in chaos. And you see that by means of the fact that God has given the principalities and powers of the air, a certain dominion within the heavenly places beneath the sovereign heavenly places in which he rules and reigns. But there's coming a time in salvation history where these rulers that are inferior to God in Christ will be once and for all destroyed and eradicated, which you see, I think also in first Corinthians 15, the last enemy death is put to death and is destroyed.

And so also the kingdom is going to crush all the principalities and powers of the air, including the enemy of, of death. So we preach Christ crucified. We preach Christ resurrected and exalted and glorified that in Christ Jesus, there is this unity that, that we have practically also.

Secondly, I think in terms of the horizontal unity, which we'll see more when we get into Ephesians chapter two, but because it is the mystery of God's will to unite all things in Christ or to sum up, as one translation might say, or bring together all things in Christ, that, that Jesus, part of God's redemptive plan in Christ is to bring about this horizontal relationship between Jews and Gentiles that should play out practically and how we love one another in the body of Christ, of course. But also what does that look like for Christians to love our neighbors as ourselves, who are not yet united in Christ or part of this redemptive plan? It seems to me that at the most basic level, Christians must love one another because of God's redemptive plan in Jesus. And then from that plan flows also our love for our brothers and sisters in the Christian community, but also those who are, who are not in the Christian community just yet.

And all of this is something that's realized in Christ. God reuniting all things in Christ in terms of vertical, horizontal, and cosmic redemption. And then in terms of also individuals who are united to God in Christ, pursuing reconciliation, unification with their neighbors because of the gospel as we live in a broken, a broken world.

So let's take a moment again for some questions here. When we think of the word mystery, we think of something we can't know, but it seems like Paul uses that in a different way than what we normally think about that. Can you explain that? Yes.

Yeah. The, the, the illustration I tried to use when we watch a, when I watch mystery shows, you have something that's hard to figure out in the narrative of the plot of the show. You can't figure it out or understand it perhaps until the end.

Whereas with Paul, when he talks about mystery, it is something that was previously hidden in the Old Testament. And that's now been revealed in Christ. He develops this a bit more, I think, in chapter three, when he talks about the mystery of the gospel.

But it seems to me, even at this level, that the mystery relates to his redemptive plan to do what he says here to sum up or unite all things in heaven and upon the earth in Christ. And that certainly integral to that is Jew and Gentile and Gentile inclusion into these Jewish redemptive promises of God, that that wasn't as clear in the Old Testament as it is now, how God would do that. What was clear was God is going to bless the nations, that Gentiles were always going to be a part of this cosmic renewal that starts with his promises to Abraham.

I suppose you go way back to Genesis 315 with the language of crushing the seed of the serpent by means of the seed of the woman. So the Gentile inclusion piece, the cosmic renewal piece in Isaiah 65, 17 and 25, that's clear. What doesn't seem to be clear is, is that all of that is going to happen in Jesus of Nazareth, this Jewish Messiah who is the Christ.

And so that was revealed when Jesus entered into this present evil age and the fullness of time that he hints at that in chapter 1, verse 10, and explicitly states it in Galatians 4, verse 4. So it's not something that we can't understand. It's something that we don't know until God reveals it. I think perhaps the analogy would be in terms of a theological example, Calvin in his Institutes of Christian Religion talks about how if we want to rightly understand or know ourselves, we need to understand and know God.

God reveals himself to us and we only know God because he reveals himself to us. And that's how we can rightly understand who we are in light of the transcendence and magnificence of this great, great God. By way of analogy, we can only know that God has designed to do this redemptive work for Jews and Gentiles and for the cosmos in Christ when Christ is revealed in the fullness of time.