Ephesians
Chapter 1 – The Eternal Purposes of God
1. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:
Paul. In the typical style of the day, the letter opens with the name of the author.
I wonder if Paul ever lost the marvel of having received God’s calling to be an apostle of Jesus Christ. He, who had persecuted the early believers with such vehemence and zealously labored to eliminate the work of God, was now a messenger (an apostle) for God. He referred to himself as the “least of the apostles” and the one who was “born out of due time,” yet the New Testament (NT) bears testimony to the impact that his life had on the early believers (1 Corinthians 15:8, 9). Who of us does not feel inadequate? Yet Paul is an example of the mighty work that is possible through a life that has yielded to the Savior!
Paul leaves no doubt as to Whose Apostle he is: he is a messenger (an apostle) of Jesus Christ, and frequently also identifies himself as being a servant (doulos – slave) of the Lord (Romans 1:1).1 Jesus means “Savior” (Jehovah is salvation), even as the angel of the Lord conveyed to Joseph that His name was to be Jesus, “for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).2 Christ means “Anointed,” just like the Hebrew word Messiah.3 Paul is the messenger, or herald, of God’s anointed Savior for the world, the One Who died to open the way for us to the Father (John 14:6).
Paul identifies Whom he is representing and the title that he has used to identify himself, now he clarifies by what authority he presents himself as an Apostle of Jesus Christ: by the will of God. Surely, Paul’s mind must have flashed back to that day on the road to Damascus when he met the Lord Jesus in a life-changing way. Paul had not sought the Lord (after all, he was a righteous Pharisee), but God found Paul and commissioned him for a very specific work. There was no room for pride in this, for Paul was a persecutor of the followers of Jesus when God shone a light on him that knocked him to the ground (Acts 9:3-4). Paul had been a man on a mission; he was determined to eliminate Christians wherever he could find them – all in his zeal for God! Here was a man who had a tremendous understanding of things pertaining to God, yet he still walked in darkness. There comes no light to the soul through knowing about God; unless we come to know Him, we will remain in spiritual darkness, for nothing less will lift us out of our sin. God shone His light on Paul and his life changed forever in that instant. When the light of God came into Paul’s life, the darkness could no longer hold him in its grip. Did Paul become perfect in this life? There are some who claim that we can experience perfect holiness while on this earth, yet that is not what we find in Paul. Romans 7 tells us that Paul was very aware of the conflict that raged within him, but that did not negate his challenge to live victoriously (Romans 8; 1 Corinthians 3:16, 17, 6:19, 20; Galatians 5:1; Hebrews 12:1-3).
The “will of God” is often thought of as being elusive and something for which we must diligently seek – that niche in life that, if we find it, will result in God being pleased with us. Yet here Paul openly and boldly declares that it was by the will of God that he became God’s messenger – there is no question about it, and no hesitancy in declaring it. It would seem that in our desire to appear to be very spiritual, we have made a mystery out of something that is not one, created confusion where God has given us clear direction, and introduced gray where there is only black and white. We all have a Bible, the Word of God, and yet we struggle to understand the will of God; we hold the declaration of the will of God in our hands (the Bible), yet expect God to somehow show us how He wants us to live without having to open the Book to read it. The will of God is really nothing more than His commandments, His precepts or teachings, His desires and His pleasure. How can we know the will of God for ourselves? Read the Word of God; study it diligently while leaning heavily upon the promised guidance and illumination by the Spirit of God; if we have placed our faith in the finished work of Christ, then this wonderful promise of the abiding Spirit’s guidance is ours (John 16:13). We must begin with a mind that is being continually renewed by the Spirit of God (Ephesians 4:23), which will lead to a transformed life (Romans 12:2) – both (renewed and transformed) are in the passive voice, which identifies these as being God’s work in us (not our work).4 However, God will not work in us against our wills; we must be willing for God to carry out His work in us. “… reckon ye [a command for us to account or regard] also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:11); anytime that we read a command in Scripture, it forces us to make a choice – will we obey or not? With God’s Spirit actively working within us, we need only willingly walk in obedience to the commands that God has given (John 14:15) – i.e., in accordance with the Spirit’s leading!
However, even though this may appear to be simple, it will not be easy. God’s will for us is to live in holiness (1 Thessalonians 4:3a), not only externally, as the Pharisees sought to do (Matthew 23:27), but completely (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Such a life will require endurance and perseverance: “For ye have need of patience [hupomone], that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise” (Hebrews 10:36). What we read as patience, the underlying Greek (hupomone) speaks of being steadfast (a long-enduring patience), and this in the face of opposition, trials and suffering.5 One of Jesus’ promises is that we will face tribulation in this life: “In the world ye shall have [are having; present tense; indicative mood, this is a statement of fact] tribulation [thlipsis – oppression, affliction, trouble, distress, etc.] …” (John 16:33b).6 “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings [ye are sharing in the sufferings of Christ] …” (1 Peter 4:12-13a).7 What should be evident is that suffering is an integral part of our new lives in Christ (2 Timothy 3:12; 1 Peter 3:17; 4:19). Some of the tribulation may come from the ungodly, for we are told that our godly lives (lived-out according to the will of God) will be a testimony against them: for our well doing will put them to silence (1 Peter 2:15). However, even a cursory look at the life of Jesus confirms that His greatest opposition came from those who were religious – those who felt that their lives were in order and saw no need for change. Do not be mystified if you face opposition, and even persecution, from those who profess to be Christians; they consider walking in the will of God as being too narrow, and will frequently call it legalism (a misdiagnosis of obedience), for they, too, will be condemned by your holiness of life. We have been promised eternal life if we are doing the will of God (1 John 2:17), but Jesus clarified this for us: “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved” (Matthew 24:13). Let’s consider Jesus’ words carefully to ensure that we understand them properly. Endure (hupomeno) is from the verb form of hupomone, and also speaks of a steadfastness (faithfulness) in the face of trials and opposition; Jesus says that we must remain faithful to Him unto the end – this can only mean our death or His return for the harvest of His faithful ones (the rapture).8 The same is from a Greek demonstrative pronoun that refers back to the faithfully enduring one, as in: this is the one!9 Therefore, it is the one who remains faithful to the Lord unto the end who will be saved – yes, saved is in the future tense; our salvation is conditional upon faithfully abiding in the Lord unto the end. Jesus does not present a salvation that guarantees heaven now – as in pray a prayer and your place in heaven is assured; the assurance that Jesus gives is that if we remain faithful to Him, then He will bestow His salvation upon us (saved is in the passive voice). We can be confident that as we live in obedience to the Lord, tribulation will be our lot. Paul was an apostle by the will of God, yet he faced much hardship and persecution for the Lord; there is a cost to being a follower of Christ – a cross that we must faithfully bear for the Lord (Luke 14:33)!
Paul now identifies the primary and specific audience of this letter: the saints which are at Ephesus, and ... the faithful in Christ Jesus. It was at Ephesus that Paul had a significant ministry – both in terms of effectiveness and length (Acts 19:1-20). However, the target audience is not limited to the Ephesian Christians, but everyone who is faithful in Christ Jesus may consider this epistle to have be written to them as well.
Faithful, within this context, does not carry what we would consider to be the usual sense of being loyal or conscientious, but rather those who are believing (in the full measure of what this means within Scripture) in the Lord Jesus.10 Believe is the most common translation of the Greek root word pisteuo, which draws together the thought of evaluation and a resulting persuasion of the truth of a matter (or, in this case, of Who Jesus is and what He has done).11 From this we can discern that if we are believing on Jesus, then it follows that we must be living out that persuasion (or faith); in other words, unless we are living in faithful obedience to the Lord, we really cannot say that we believe. James expressed this reality: “Even so faith [pistis], if it hath not works, is dead, being alone” (James 2:17); without a life that is in keeping with the professed faith, there is no faith, and no believing – it matters not what the profession might be! This is so much more than the modern concept of believe that is held by most Evangelicals; their belief is more in keeping with the devils: “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble” (James 2:19). The devils acknowledge God and tremble; today’s Evangelical will acknowledge God (and will even express it in Biblical-sounding terms), yet unlike the devils, they do not tremble – there is no fear of the Lord in their hearts. The faithful in Christ Jesus are those who have a living persuasion that is being expressed through obedience to the commands of the Lord; Jesus said that the one who is loving Him must be carefully attending to His commands (John 14:15). This letter is directed to those who hold an active and firm faith in the Lord – there is nothing here for those who do not live faithfully for Him. Unlike many of Paul’s letters in our Scriptures, this one is largely instructive in nature, rather than corrective. The Corinthians were rebuked for not being able to bear the food that Paul desired to feed them (1 Corinthians 3:1-2), this letter contains much nourishing spiritual food.
2. Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Grace and peace were both commonly used in salutations in NT times. Yet for the believer, grace carries with it the understanding of all of the mercies and favor of God; peace (a common greeting among the Hebrews as well) brings a sense of the believer being at peace with God through the finished work of Christ – something that the unrepentant sinner cannot appreciate. The Hebrew greeting, shalom (peace), carries the thought of being complete, fulfilled and at peace with both Jehovah and man; like so much in the OT, this, too, finds its ultimate realization in Christ.12 For the early believers, even though these greetings may have been somewhat common, their new relationship with God the Father through Jesus Christ would have infused them with a whole new and greater appreciation for grace and peace.
The Apostle does not wish these virtues on the Ephesians from anything that he had within himself, but rather he identifies the source of this grace and peace as being God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Herein is the significant difference between the traditional greeting and what the Apostle uses: its Source! There are a couple of noteworthy items contained in Paul’s simple, yet profound greeting that we need to consider. 1) God is identified as being particularly our Father – the Father of all Christians or saints (everyone with whom Paul identifies: our). This must not be misconstrued to mean the Father of all of humanity as the New Agers and Mormons would have us to believe, but only of those who have been truly born again by the Spirit of God. There is no spark of God within us that we must diligently fan into flame so that it might make us into everything that God is; we were dead in our sins before being made alive by God (Ephesians 2:1, 5). As true believers (faithful followers of the Lord Jesus), we have been brought into a unique relationship with the God of the universe through the completed work of Christ – as we remain in Christ (the only basis for being reconciled with our Creator), we will be adopted into His family and receive a heavenly inheritance with Him (1 Peter 1:3-5). God is identified as being our Father but that is not through anything that we have done – it is all of God: He purchased us out of a life of sin and death so that we might become His children. 2) In a very unassuming manner, the Apostle clearly declares that God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ are equal, for each is looked to as being the Source of this grace and peace. In a day when the divinity of Christ is being called into question by so many, this is another evidence that there was no such question in the mind of the Apostle.
3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
The salutation is over, and Paul enters right into what he wants the Ephesians to learn about their faith and walk with God. He begins with praise to God for what He has done for us, but again uncovers, in a very unassuming way, significant truths about the Godhead. He ascribes blessing, or praise, to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; the Greek word for blessed (eulogetos) is only applied to God, and acclaims God as being worthy of praise.13 On several occasions during His ministry, Jesus spoke of Himself as I am (for example, John 13:19) – the eternal One (Jehovah), Who identified Himself to Moses in this way (Exodus 3:14). However, having taken on the flesh of man, Jesus also spoke of God as being His Father, and that He is the Way to the Father for everyone (John 14:6). As our Mediator (1 Timothy 2:5), Jesus holds a unique relationship with God (being both eternal God and Creator of all, and the sinless Man Who intercedes for us) and while He carried out His earthly ministry, His relationship with the Father was even more unique. To Nicodemus Jesus said: “And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is [present tense] in heaven” (John 3:13);14 even as He spoke with Nicodemus, He was also in heaven with the Father – as Jesus told the Pharisees: “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30). Within the mystical union of the Godhead, there is God the Father and God the Son, Who is the only begotten of the Father (John 1:14; 3:16; 1 John 4:9), and God the Holy Spirit, and these, the three, are one (1 John 5:7b, literal).15 Can we comprehend the mystery of the triune God? Not too likely, nor should we desire to do so, for the ways of God cannot be understood by the mind of man (Isaiah 55:8-9) – the infinite is well beyond the finite.
1. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:
Paul. In the typical style of the day, the letter opens with the name of the author.
I wonder if Paul ever lost the marvel of having received God’s calling to be an apostle of Jesus Christ. He, who had persecuted the early believers with such vehemence and zealously labored to eliminate the work of God, was now a messenger (an apostle) for God. He referred to himself as the “least of the apostles” and the one who was “born out of due time,” yet the New Testament (NT) bears testimony to the impact that his life had on the early believers (1 Corinthians 15:8, 9). Who of us does not feel inadequate? Yet Paul is an example of the mighty work that is possible through a life that has yielded to the Savior!
Paul leaves no doubt as to Whose Apostle he is: he is a messenger (an apostle) of Jesus Christ, and frequently also identifies himself as being a servant (doulos – slave) of the Lord (Romans 1:1).1 Jesus means “Savior” (Jehovah is salvation), even as the angel of the Lord conveyed to Joseph that His name was to be Jesus, “for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).2 Christ means “Anointed,” just like the Hebrew word Messiah.3 Paul is the messenger, or herald, of God’s anointed Savior for the world, the One Who died to open the way for us to the Father (John 14:6).
Paul identifies Whom he is representing and the title that he has used to identify himself, now he clarifies by what authority he presents himself as an Apostle of Jesus Christ: by the will of God. Surely, Paul’s mind must have flashed back to that day on the road to Damascus when he met the Lord Jesus in a life-changing way. Paul had not sought the Lord (after all, he was a righteous Pharisee), but God found Paul and commissioned him for a very specific work. There was no room for pride in this, for Paul was a persecutor of the followers of Jesus when God shone a light on him that knocked him to the ground (Acts 9:3-4). Paul had been a man on a mission; he was determined to eliminate Christians wherever he could find them – all in his zeal for God! Here was a man who had a tremendous understanding of things pertaining to God, yet he still walked in darkness. There comes no light to the soul through knowing about God; unless we come to know Him, we will remain in spiritual darkness, for nothing less will lift us out of our sin. God shone His light on Paul and his life changed forever in that instant. When the light of God came into Paul’s life, the darkness could no longer hold him in its grip. Did Paul become perfect in this life? There are some who claim that we can experience perfect holiness while on this earth, yet that is not what we find in Paul. Romans 7 tells us that Paul was very aware of the conflict that raged within him, but that did not negate his challenge to live victoriously (Romans 8; 1 Corinthians 3:16, 17, 6:19, 20; Galatians 5:1; Hebrews 12:1-3).
The “will of God” is often thought of as being elusive and something for which we must diligently seek – that niche in life that, if we find it, will result in God being pleased with us. Yet here Paul openly and boldly declares that it was by the will of God that he became God’s messenger – there is no question about it, and no hesitancy in declaring it. It would seem that in our desire to appear to be very spiritual, we have made a mystery out of something that is not one, created confusion where God has given us clear direction, and introduced gray where there is only black and white. We all have a Bible, the Word of God, and yet we struggle to understand the will of God; we hold the declaration of the will of God in our hands (the Bible), yet expect God to somehow show us how He wants us to live without having to open the Book to read it. The will of God is really nothing more than His commandments, His precepts or teachings, His desires and His pleasure. How can we know the will of God for ourselves? Read the Word of God; study it diligently while leaning heavily upon the promised guidance and illumination by the Spirit of God; if we have placed our faith in the finished work of Christ, then this wonderful promise of the abiding Spirit’s guidance is ours (John 16:13). We must begin with a mind that is being continually renewed by the Spirit of God (Ephesians 4:23), which will lead to a transformed life (Romans 12:2) – both (renewed and transformed) are in the passive voice, which identifies these as being God’s work in us (not our work).4 However, God will not work in us against our wills; we must be willing for God to carry out His work in us. “… reckon ye [a command for us to account or regard] also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:11); anytime that we read a command in Scripture, it forces us to make a choice – will we obey or not? With God’s Spirit actively working within us, we need only willingly walk in obedience to the commands that God has given (John 14:15) – i.e., in accordance with the Spirit’s leading!
However, even though this may appear to be simple, it will not be easy. God’s will for us is to live in holiness (1 Thessalonians 4:3a), not only externally, as the Pharisees sought to do (Matthew 23:27), but completely (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Such a life will require endurance and perseverance: “For ye have need of patience [hupomone], that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise” (Hebrews 10:36). What we read as patience, the underlying Greek (hupomone) speaks of being steadfast (a long-enduring patience), and this in the face of opposition, trials and suffering.5 One of Jesus’ promises is that we will face tribulation in this life: “In the world ye shall have [are having; present tense; indicative mood, this is a statement of fact] tribulation [thlipsis – oppression, affliction, trouble, distress, etc.] …” (John 16:33b).6 “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings [ye are sharing in the sufferings of Christ] …” (1 Peter 4:12-13a).7 What should be evident is that suffering is an integral part of our new lives in Christ (2 Timothy 3:12; 1 Peter 3:17; 4:19). Some of the tribulation may come from the ungodly, for we are told that our godly lives (lived-out according to the will of God) will be a testimony against them: for our well doing will put them to silence (1 Peter 2:15). However, even a cursory look at the life of Jesus confirms that His greatest opposition came from those who were religious – those who felt that their lives were in order and saw no need for change. Do not be mystified if you face opposition, and even persecution, from those who profess to be Christians; they consider walking in the will of God as being too narrow, and will frequently call it legalism (a misdiagnosis of obedience), for they, too, will be condemned by your holiness of life. We have been promised eternal life if we are doing the will of God (1 John 2:17), but Jesus clarified this for us: “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved” (Matthew 24:13). Let’s consider Jesus’ words carefully to ensure that we understand them properly. Endure (hupomeno) is from the verb form of hupomone, and also speaks of a steadfastness (faithfulness) in the face of trials and opposition; Jesus says that we must remain faithful to Him unto the end – this can only mean our death or His return for the harvest of His faithful ones (the rapture).8 The same is from a Greek demonstrative pronoun that refers back to the faithfully enduring one, as in: this is the one!9 Therefore, it is the one who remains faithful to the Lord unto the end who will be saved – yes, saved is in the future tense; our salvation is conditional upon faithfully abiding in the Lord unto the end. Jesus does not present a salvation that guarantees heaven now – as in pray a prayer and your place in heaven is assured; the assurance that Jesus gives is that if we remain faithful to Him, then He will bestow His salvation upon us (saved is in the passive voice). We can be confident that as we live in obedience to the Lord, tribulation will be our lot. Paul was an apostle by the will of God, yet he faced much hardship and persecution for the Lord; there is a cost to being a follower of Christ – a cross that we must faithfully bear for the Lord (Luke 14:33)!
Paul now identifies the primary and specific audience of this letter: the saints which are at Ephesus, and ... the faithful in Christ Jesus. It was at Ephesus that Paul had a significant ministry – both in terms of effectiveness and length (Acts 19:1-20). However, the target audience is not limited to the Ephesian Christians, but everyone who is faithful in Christ Jesus may consider this epistle to have be written to them as well.
Faithful, within this context, does not carry what we would consider to be the usual sense of being loyal or conscientious, but rather those who are believing (in the full measure of what this means within Scripture) in the Lord Jesus.10 Believe is the most common translation of the Greek root word pisteuo, which draws together the thought of evaluation and a resulting persuasion of the truth of a matter (or, in this case, of Who Jesus is and what He has done).11 From this we can discern that if we are believing on Jesus, then it follows that we must be living out that persuasion (or faith); in other words, unless we are living in faithful obedience to the Lord, we really cannot say that we believe. James expressed this reality: “Even so faith [pistis], if it hath not works, is dead, being alone” (James 2:17); without a life that is in keeping with the professed faith, there is no faith, and no believing – it matters not what the profession might be! This is so much more than the modern concept of believe that is held by most Evangelicals; their belief is more in keeping with the devils: “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble” (James 2:19). The devils acknowledge God and tremble; today’s Evangelical will acknowledge God (and will even express it in Biblical-sounding terms), yet unlike the devils, they do not tremble – there is no fear of the Lord in their hearts. The faithful in Christ Jesus are those who have a living persuasion that is being expressed through obedience to the commands of the Lord; Jesus said that the one who is loving Him must be carefully attending to His commands (John 14:15). This letter is directed to those who hold an active and firm faith in the Lord – there is nothing here for those who do not live faithfully for Him. Unlike many of Paul’s letters in our Scriptures, this one is largely instructive in nature, rather than corrective. The Corinthians were rebuked for not being able to bear the food that Paul desired to feed them (1 Corinthians 3:1-2), this letter contains much nourishing spiritual food.
2. Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Grace and peace were both commonly used in salutations in NT times. Yet for the believer, grace carries with it the understanding of all of the mercies and favor of God; peace (a common greeting among the Hebrews as well) brings a sense of the believer being at peace with God through the finished work of Christ – something that the unrepentant sinner cannot appreciate. The Hebrew greeting, shalom (peace), carries the thought of being complete, fulfilled and at peace with both Jehovah and man; like so much in the OT, this, too, finds its ultimate realization in Christ.12 For the early believers, even though these greetings may have been somewhat common, their new relationship with God the Father through Jesus Christ would have infused them with a whole new and greater appreciation for grace and peace.
The Apostle does not wish these virtues on the Ephesians from anything that he had within himself, but rather he identifies the source of this grace and peace as being God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Herein is the significant difference between the traditional greeting and what the Apostle uses: its Source! There are a couple of noteworthy items contained in Paul’s simple, yet profound greeting that we need to consider. 1) God is identified as being particularly our Father – the Father of all Christians or saints (everyone with whom Paul identifies: our). This must not be misconstrued to mean the Father of all of humanity as the New Agers and Mormons would have us to believe, but only of those who have been truly born again by the Spirit of God. There is no spark of God within us that we must diligently fan into flame so that it might make us into everything that God is; we were dead in our sins before being made alive by God (Ephesians 2:1, 5). As true believers (faithful followers of the Lord Jesus), we have been brought into a unique relationship with the God of the universe through the completed work of Christ – as we remain in Christ (the only basis for being reconciled with our Creator), we will be adopted into His family and receive a heavenly inheritance with Him (1 Peter 1:3-5). God is identified as being our Father but that is not through anything that we have done – it is all of God: He purchased us out of a life of sin and death so that we might become His children. 2) In a very unassuming manner, the Apostle clearly declares that God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ are equal, for each is looked to as being the Source of this grace and peace. In a day when the divinity of Christ is being called into question by so many, this is another evidence that there was no such question in the mind of the Apostle.
3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
The salutation is over, and Paul enters right into what he wants the Ephesians to learn about their faith and walk with God. He begins with praise to God for what He has done for us, but again uncovers, in a very unassuming way, significant truths about the Godhead. He ascribes blessing, or praise, to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; the Greek word for blessed (eulogetos) is only applied to God, and acclaims God as being worthy of praise.13 On several occasions during His ministry, Jesus spoke of Himself as I am (for example, John 13:19) – the eternal One (Jehovah), Who identified Himself to Moses in this way (Exodus 3:14). However, having taken on the flesh of man, Jesus also spoke of God as being His Father, and that He is the Way to the Father for everyone (John 14:6). As our Mediator (1 Timothy 2:5), Jesus holds a unique relationship with God (being both eternal God and Creator of all, and the sinless Man Who intercedes for us) and while He carried out His earthly ministry, His relationship with the Father was even more unique. To Nicodemus Jesus said: “And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is [present tense] in heaven” (John 3:13);14 even as He spoke with Nicodemus, He was also in heaven with the Father – as Jesus told the Pharisees: “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30). Within the mystical union of the Godhead, there is God the Father and God the Son, Who is the only begotten of the Father (John 1:14; 3:16; 1 John 4:9), and God the Holy Spirit, and these, the three, are one (1 John 5:7b, literal).15 Can we comprehend the mystery of the triune God? Not too likely, nor should we desire to do so, for the ways of God cannot be understood by the mind of man (Isaiah 55:8-9) – the infinite is well beyond the finite.
It is interesting to note that the attack of Satan is so often against the Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity, and it is the denigration of the Son that John identifies as bearing the spirit of the antichrist (1 John 2:22). It was promised that, through the work of a coming Savior, Satan would be dealt a death-blow (Genesis 3:15); it was Jesus, the Son of God, Who fulfilled this promise! From the time of Christ, Satan has worked diligently to discredit Jesus, and to nullify His saving work in the minds of any who will give him heed. The Jehovah’s Witnesses will give Jesus god status (small “g”), but deny that He is equal with God the Father (He is not Almighty God16). The Mormons make Jesus a god among many gods, and hold Him up as an example of what we will become if we hold faithfully to the teachings of Joseph Smith.17 Although the Roman Catholic Church has not officially declared Mary, the mother of Jesus, to be Co-Redemptrix with Christ, this has been a title that many Catholics have applied to her since the Middle Ages, and even today there is a conservative Catholic movement that is attempting to get the Church to include this in their dogma.18 Many religions will accept Jesus as a good teacher, perhaps even as a prophet, but they will deny Him His rightful place as God (e.g., Islam). Modern Evangelicals have denied that Jesus is the only way to God; the late Billy Graham said that “everybody who knows Christ, whether they are conscious of it or not … whether … Muslim … Buddhist … or … Christian … are “members of the Body of Christ, because they’ve been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus … I think they are saved, and that they are going to be in heaven with us.” (emphasis in original).19 The “pope of Evangelicalism” denied the words of Jesus in John 14:6; take heed, the evidence of Satan’s activity is all around us!
God, the Father of our Mediator, has bestowed a blessing upon us. Us can be identified as including the Apostle Paul and those to whom he has addressed this letter, namely the saints who are at Ephesus and all of those who are faithful in Christ Jesus. God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing (all and blessings are both singular in Greek);20 there is not one spiritual blessing that God has neglected to bestow upon us. God may bless some with good health, or others with many of the good things in life, but these are only temporal in nature – spiritual blessings bear an eternal element and a heavenly flavor. Herein we receive our cleansing from sin, our sanctification in Christ, our adoption into God’s family, and our inheritance of heaven itself. Our temporal blessings often come in a mixed manner: some enjoy good health, but have little in life; others may enjoy all the wealth that life can afford, but suffer from poor health. It is not like that with the spiritual blessings that God bestows on us – everyone who is in Christ will receive every spiritual blessing that God has to offer. The limiting factor is that we must be one of His saints (in Christ) and live in faithfulness to Him. Yes, faithfulness is required! The Lord declares that it is the one who is overcoming who will inherit all things (Revelation 21:7a) – the one who is victorious in Christ, which can only come through faithful obedience to Him.
The word places, in our verse, has been supplied by the translators and does not appear in the original text. The seat of the spiritual blessing is the heavenlies, the dwelling place of God,21 and not the earth, nor is it from within the heart of man (we will discover no spiritual illumination or blessing by looking within, despite how enthusiastically this is being promoted today). This blessing is from the Lord in heaven and is available only in Christ. This (in Christ) is a critically important phrase, for it identifies where we must be in order to know every blessing from God: in Christ. Jesus’ discourse on the vine and the branches finds a natural fit with this phrase (John 15:1-17); it is as we are abiding in Him (the Vine) and receiving of His nourishment that we are eligible for every blessing from God – they are only available in Christ. Therefore, unless we are faithfully abiding in Him, we cannot know God’s blessing, for we have no spiritual life apart from Christ so as to discern spiritual truth (1 Corinthians 2:14).
4. According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
This verse and what follows, is an integral part of a larger thought, and is tied to the previous verse that told us that God has bestowed every spiritual blessing upon His faithful ones in Christ. The first two words (according as) connect the blessing of God in Christ to an eternal plan – it is all unfolding in keeping with His purposes that were in place before He created Adam. Every blessing that is conferred is not an afterthought, but is part of the eternal purposes of God that are being made available to us in Christ. There is great surety here, for God is the One Who is orchestrating all things, and doing so through our Mediator, Christ!
The word us can only refer to the saints who are at Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus, and to Paul, who wrote these words (as outlined in verse one). Hath chosen (eklegomai) describes an action that is not set in time (i.e., it is neither past, present, nor future tense) and means to be called out for the One choosing, with the associated concept of showing favor or kindness.22 We read of God: Who all men is desiring to save and unto a full knowledge of the truth to come (1 Timothy 2:4, literal).23 From this it is very clear that God desires to save everyone (all men), which is in keeping with: for thus God did love [from agape, love as an act of the will] the world [kosmos – humanity, not the world system] (John 3:16a, literal).24 Yet Jesus made it equally clear that, despite His great love for all of humanity, not everyone will be saved, even among those who call upon Him: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). Included within the idea of choosing is the necessity of making a distinction – there is a basis for making the choice; in this case, the deciding factor is that the chosen are in Him. It is equally clear, from this phrase, that it is God Who does the choosing, and He has clarified the basis for His choice.
Nevertheless, we must not be like the Calvinists who understand this to mean that God has arbitrarily selected some individuals for salvation and has determined damnation for the rest – all of this from eternity past! It is their contention that Christ did not die for all of mankind but only for those whom God has selected (the chosen) for salvation.25 Their position fails the Biblical test on two very-evident points: 1) they do not give proper credence to the phrase in him in our verse that serves to establish the basis for God’s selection, and 2) there is nothing that would suggest that it is God’s choice that brings salvation to those who have been chosen. The basis for God’s choice is this: He has chosen all of those who are in Christ, simply because Jesus is the only Mediator Who can reconcile humanity with God (1 Timothy 2:5). Those who are in Christ by faith (a presently active believing – John 3:16) have been “created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). God has not chosen some to salvation and left the rest to damnation; rather, He has chosen those who are in Christ unto works of service for Him! What we must not miss is that we have been chosen to live according to the life of service that God has prepared for us in Christ; it is a man-fabricated doctrine that contends that God has pre-determined someone named John Brown to salvation. Jesus forthrightly declared that He is the way, the truth and the life, and that no one is coming to the Father except through Him (John 14:6), yet He also made it clear that everlasting life and being His disciple is open to whosoever (John 3:16; Mark 8:34). Such an open invitation from the Savior does not fit within Calvinism; however, Jesus also clarified that although the invitation is open to all, it is the one who follows Him faithfully through trials unto the end who will be saved (Matthew 10:22). To those who are in Christ by faith comes the necessity of living faithfully in obedience to Him, and so we read this warning: “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief [apistia – no belief, unfaithful], in departing [becoming apostate] from the living God” (Hebrews 3:12).26 Contrary to Calvinism, God is patient toward us, not desiring any to perish but all in repentance to come (2 Peter 3:9, literal).27
The basis for God’s choice was established before creation began (before the foundation of the world) – founded in the timeless, eternal purposes of God. Herein is one of the great mysteries of our faith: God has chosen those who are in Christ from before the act of creation! Can we comprehend such? Hardly. John 3:16 tells us that everyone who is believing in Christ is not ruined but is having everlasting life (literal translation).28 Believing is in the active voice (which identifies this as something that everyone is responsible to do) and present tense (it must be presently active; a past belief holds no value).29 This also runs contrary to Calvinism – they hold tenaciously to the total depravity of man to the extent that man cannot even choose to believe; yet the Scriptures are clear that fallen, sinful man still bears the image of God (Genesis 9:6; James 3:9) – the ability to think, reason, and make choices. Moses, as he addressed the children of Israel just before he died, laid before them their options before the Lord, and then declared: “Choose life!” (Deuteronomy 30:19) – Calvinism says that the Israelites were incapable of choosing life unless God first regenerated their spirits; yet Moses, who has communed with God more intimately than any Calvinist has, made it clear that every Israelite could make that choice. However, common Evangelical thinking also fails at this point: they contend that as long as someone has prayed a prayer for salvation at some time in his life, then he is saved no matter how he has lived since. Jesus made it very clear that it is the one who remains faithful to Him through the trials of life who will one day be saved (Matthew 24:13); faithfulness to the Lord can only be expressed through obedience! Jesus also said: “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15); if we love the Lord (an indication of our faith in Him), then it is necessary that we also observe to do His commands.30
We now come to the purpose for God’s selection (that we should be holy), and the reality of what it means for God to have chosen those who are in Christ for Himself. The KJV translators have made this holiness sound like it is optional: we should be holy; for those who are in Christ, this is far from the case. Consider a more literal translation: we, being holy and without blemish before Him, in love He did predetermine us unto adoption through Jesus Christ ….31 The thought that Paul develops in our text runs into the next one without interruption (as we know, the verse markers were made by man as a matter of convenience, yet they often break thoughts that should not be broken). As we consider the literal translation, we understand that holy and without blame (blemish) are not options, but are to characterize on a continuous basis who we are in Christ. This also extends the condition of faithfulness to the adoption that can be ours in Christ; as we are faithfully abiding in Christ, we have replaced our sin with His righteousness (removed the old man and put on the new man of Ephesians 4:22-24).
The whole purpose of God in selecting those who place themselves by faith under the atoning sacrifice of Christ, as our Mediator with God, is that they are then holy before Him. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Paul’s desire was to “be found in him [that is, in Christ], not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Philippians 3:9). Being found in Christ demands a life-change; this is not just heaven someday, but a new life now that is distinct from the world and set apart for the glory of God (holy).32 Clearly, Jesus had this in mind when He said that it would be by their actions, their fruits, that the false prophets could be identified (Matthew 7:15-20); yet, just as clearly, He went on to show that not everyone would be accepted who was sure that he was among God’s chosen ones (Matthew 7:21-23). God saves us by His grace when we place our faith in the Lord Jesus, yet as James makes so clear, unless our faith leads to faith-based works (a life of obedience to the Lord), it is dead (James 2:17). Paul goes to great lengths in Romans 8:1-9 to clarify that if we have been born-again by the Spirit of God, then we no longer walk according to the flesh – not that the struggle against the flesh is gone but, rather, the struggle affirms that the Spirit of God has entered our lives (else there would be no struggle). This is the reason that God rejected those mentioned in Matthew 7:21-23 – although they had done many amazing things in His name, yet they were never known by Him and, therefore, the Spirit of God did not abide within them. Man is naturally a religious creature (the multitude of religions around the world is evidence of that); therefore, it is possible that there will be those who will feign Christianity by doing “Christian” things, but their actions will be the product of their own efforts without the guiding presence of the Spirit of God. According to Jesus’ words just before the passage to which we referred, we must pay careful attention to the fruit that is produced in the lives of those about us (Matthew 7:16). It seems that those who are operating as wolves in sheep’s clothing will reveal their “wolfishness” (they may have a veneer of Christianity but are without the Spirit of God) – they will not be able to hide this from the spiritually discerning.
Combined with God choosing those who are in Christ and our life-calling to holy-living and service to the Lord, we find passages that make it abundantly clear that God is not willing that anyone should perish (1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9). The Spirit of God, abiding in the hearts of the Lord’s faithful ones, is convicting men of their sin (John 16:8-9), yet not everyone will yield to that conviction and place their faith in Christ. Once again, the ways of God are higher than ours; He has prepared a way for all of mankind, but not everyone will place his faith in the Way Who was prepared from before the foundation of the world.
The last phrase, in love, actually ties more directly to what is coming in the next verse (as we saw from the literal translation that we looked at earlier). Our adoption by God through Christ flows out of His love for us – it was His love for all of humanity that brought Jesus from the glories of heaven to become the final Sacrifice for sin (John 3:16).
God, the Father of our Mediator, has bestowed a blessing upon us. Us can be identified as including the Apostle Paul and those to whom he has addressed this letter, namely the saints who are at Ephesus and all of those who are faithful in Christ Jesus. God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing (all and blessings are both singular in Greek);20 there is not one spiritual blessing that God has neglected to bestow upon us. God may bless some with good health, or others with many of the good things in life, but these are only temporal in nature – spiritual blessings bear an eternal element and a heavenly flavor. Herein we receive our cleansing from sin, our sanctification in Christ, our adoption into God’s family, and our inheritance of heaven itself. Our temporal blessings often come in a mixed manner: some enjoy good health, but have little in life; others may enjoy all the wealth that life can afford, but suffer from poor health. It is not like that with the spiritual blessings that God bestows on us – everyone who is in Christ will receive every spiritual blessing that God has to offer. The limiting factor is that we must be one of His saints (in Christ) and live in faithfulness to Him. Yes, faithfulness is required! The Lord declares that it is the one who is overcoming who will inherit all things (Revelation 21:7a) – the one who is victorious in Christ, which can only come through faithful obedience to Him.
The word places, in our verse, has been supplied by the translators and does not appear in the original text. The seat of the spiritual blessing is the heavenlies, the dwelling place of God,21 and not the earth, nor is it from within the heart of man (we will discover no spiritual illumination or blessing by looking within, despite how enthusiastically this is being promoted today). This blessing is from the Lord in heaven and is available only in Christ. This (in Christ) is a critically important phrase, for it identifies where we must be in order to know every blessing from God: in Christ. Jesus’ discourse on the vine and the branches finds a natural fit with this phrase (John 15:1-17); it is as we are abiding in Him (the Vine) and receiving of His nourishment that we are eligible for every blessing from God – they are only available in Christ. Therefore, unless we are faithfully abiding in Him, we cannot know God’s blessing, for we have no spiritual life apart from Christ so as to discern spiritual truth (1 Corinthians 2:14).
4. According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
This verse and what follows, is an integral part of a larger thought, and is tied to the previous verse that told us that God has bestowed every spiritual blessing upon His faithful ones in Christ. The first two words (according as) connect the blessing of God in Christ to an eternal plan – it is all unfolding in keeping with His purposes that were in place before He created Adam. Every blessing that is conferred is not an afterthought, but is part of the eternal purposes of God that are being made available to us in Christ. There is great surety here, for God is the One Who is orchestrating all things, and doing so through our Mediator, Christ!
The word us can only refer to the saints who are at Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus, and to Paul, who wrote these words (as outlined in verse one). Hath chosen (eklegomai) describes an action that is not set in time (i.e., it is neither past, present, nor future tense) and means to be called out for the One choosing, with the associated concept of showing favor or kindness.22 We read of God: Who all men is desiring to save and unto a full knowledge of the truth to come (1 Timothy 2:4, literal).23 From this it is very clear that God desires to save everyone (all men), which is in keeping with: for thus God did love [from agape, love as an act of the will] the world [kosmos – humanity, not the world system] (John 3:16a, literal).24 Yet Jesus made it equally clear that, despite His great love for all of humanity, not everyone will be saved, even among those who call upon Him: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). Included within the idea of choosing is the necessity of making a distinction – there is a basis for making the choice; in this case, the deciding factor is that the chosen are in Him. It is equally clear, from this phrase, that it is God Who does the choosing, and He has clarified the basis for His choice.
Nevertheless, we must not be like the Calvinists who understand this to mean that God has arbitrarily selected some individuals for salvation and has determined damnation for the rest – all of this from eternity past! It is their contention that Christ did not die for all of mankind but only for those whom God has selected (the chosen) for salvation.25 Their position fails the Biblical test on two very-evident points: 1) they do not give proper credence to the phrase in him in our verse that serves to establish the basis for God’s selection, and 2) there is nothing that would suggest that it is God’s choice that brings salvation to those who have been chosen. The basis for God’s choice is this: He has chosen all of those who are in Christ, simply because Jesus is the only Mediator Who can reconcile humanity with God (1 Timothy 2:5). Those who are in Christ by faith (a presently active believing – John 3:16) have been “created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). God has not chosen some to salvation and left the rest to damnation; rather, He has chosen those who are in Christ unto works of service for Him! What we must not miss is that we have been chosen to live according to the life of service that God has prepared for us in Christ; it is a man-fabricated doctrine that contends that God has pre-determined someone named John Brown to salvation. Jesus forthrightly declared that He is the way, the truth and the life, and that no one is coming to the Father except through Him (John 14:6), yet He also made it clear that everlasting life and being His disciple is open to whosoever (John 3:16; Mark 8:34). Such an open invitation from the Savior does not fit within Calvinism; however, Jesus also clarified that although the invitation is open to all, it is the one who follows Him faithfully through trials unto the end who will be saved (Matthew 10:22). To those who are in Christ by faith comes the necessity of living faithfully in obedience to Him, and so we read this warning: “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief [apistia – no belief, unfaithful], in departing [becoming apostate] from the living God” (Hebrews 3:12).26 Contrary to Calvinism, God is patient toward us, not desiring any to perish but all in repentance to come (2 Peter 3:9, literal).27
The basis for God’s choice was established before creation began (before the foundation of the world) – founded in the timeless, eternal purposes of God. Herein is one of the great mysteries of our faith: God has chosen those who are in Christ from before the act of creation! Can we comprehend such? Hardly. John 3:16 tells us that everyone who is believing in Christ is not ruined but is having everlasting life (literal translation).28 Believing is in the active voice (which identifies this as something that everyone is responsible to do) and present tense (it must be presently active; a past belief holds no value).29 This also runs contrary to Calvinism – they hold tenaciously to the total depravity of man to the extent that man cannot even choose to believe; yet the Scriptures are clear that fallen, sinful man still bears the image of God (Genesis 9:6; James 3:9) – the ability to think, reason, and make choices. Moses, as he addressed the children of Israel just before he died, laid before them their options before the Lord, and then declared: “Choose life!” (Deuteronomy 30:19) – Calvinism says that the Israelites were incapable of choosing life unless God first regenerated their spirits; yet Moses, who has communed with God more intimately than any Calvinist has, made it clear that every Israelite could make that choice. However, common Evangelical thinking also fails at this point: they contend that as long as someone has prayed a prayer for salvation at some time in his life, then he is saved no matter how he has lived since. Jesus made it very clear that it is the one who remains faithful to Him through the trials of life who will one day be saved (Matthew 24:13); faithfulness to the Lord can only be expressed through obedience! Jesus also said: “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15); if we love the Lord (an indication of our faith in Him), then it is necessary that we also observe to do His commands.30
We now come to the purpose for God’s selection (that we should be holy), and the reality of what it means for God to have chosen those who are in Christ for Himself. The KJV translators have made this holiness sound like it is optional: we should be holy; for those who are in Christ, this is far from the case. Consider a more literal translation: we, being holy and without blemish before Him, in love He did predetermine us unto adoption through Jesus Christ ….31 The thought that Paul develops in our text runs into the next one without interruption (as we know, the verse markers were made by man as a matter of convenience, yet they often break thoughts that should not be broken). As we consider the literal translation, we understand that holy and without blame (blemish) are not options, but are to characterize on a continuous basis who we are in Christ. This also extends the condition of faithfulness to the adoption that can be ours in Christ; as we are faithfully abiding in Christ, we have replaced our sin with His righteousness (removed the old man and put on the new man of Ephesians 4:22-24).
The whole purpose of God in selecting those who place themselves by faith under the atoning sacrifice of Christ, as our Mediator with God, is that they are then holy before Him. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Paul’s desire was to “be found in him [that is, in Christ], not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Philippians 3:9). Being found in Christ demands a life-change; this is not just heaven someday, but a new life now that is distinct from the world and set apart for the glory of God (holy).32 Clearly, Jesus had this in mind when He said that it would be by their actions, their fruits, that the false prophets could be identified (Matthew 7:15-20); yet, just as clearly, He went on to show that not everyone would be accepted who was sure that he was among God’s chosen ones (Matthew 7:21-23). God saves us by His grace when we place our faith in the Lord Jesus, yet as James makes so clear, unless our faith leads to faith-based works (a life of obedience to the Lord), it is dead (James 2:17). Paul goes to great lengths in Romans 8:1-9 to clarify that if we have been born-again by the Spirit of God, then we no longer walk according to the flesh – not that the struggle against the flesh is gone but, rather, the struggle affirms that the Spirit of God has entered our lives (else there would be no struggle). This is the reason that God rejected those mentioned in Matthew 7:21-23 – although they had done many amazing things in His name, yet they were never known by Him and, therefore, the Spirit of God did not abide within them. Man is naturally a religious creature (the multitude of religions around the world is evidence of that); therefore, it is possible that there will be those who will feign Christianity by doing “Christian” things, but their actions will be the product of their own efforts without the guiding presence of the Spirit of God. According to Jesus’ words just before the passage to which we referred, we must pay careful attention to the fruit that is produced in the lives of those about us (Matthew 7:16). It seems that those who are operating as wolves in sheep’s clothing will reveal their “wolfishness” (they may have a veneer of Christianity but are without the Spirit of God) – they will not be able to hide this from the spiritually discerning.
Combined with God choosing those who are in Christ and our life-calling to holy-living and service to the Lord, we find passages that make it abundantly clear that God is not willing that anyone should perish (1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9). The Spirit of God, abiding in the hearts of the Lord’s faithful ones, is convicting men of their sin (John 16:8-9), yet not everyone will yield to that conviction and place their faith in Christ. Once again, the ways of God are higher than ours; He has prepared a way for all of mankind, but not everyone will place his faith in the Way Who was prepared from before the foundation of the world.
The last phrase, in love, actually ties more directly to what is coming in the next verse (as we saw from the literal translation that we looked at earlier). Our adoption by God through Christ flows out of His love for us – it was His love for all of humanity that brought Jesus from the glories of heaven to become the final Sacrifice for sin (John 3:16).
5. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
Predestinated comes from a Greek word (proorizo) that means to define or mark out the boundaries or limits for, and then the concept of doing so before hand.33 God, in His infinite wisdom, did pre-determine some things for the faithful in Christ Jesus (including Paul and the saints of Ephesus – verse one); we have already noted that being holy and without blame before Him is part of what He has determined before creation for those who are in Christ. Jesus said that if we are loving Him (an obvious prerequisite to being found in Him) then we must be living in obedience to His commands as the only means for being holy (John 14:15) – this is what God has pre-determined for us from eternity past (Ephesians 2:10; 2 Timothy 1:9). Lest we view this in terms of salvation (as the Calvinists), we must not lose sight of the fact that God’s eternal choice is those who are in Christ – His choice does not place anyone in Christ! Salvation will come to anyone who, through evaluation and believing, has placed his faith in Christ (John 3:18), and then remains faithful to the Lord unto the end (Matthew 24:13). There are several critical things that are inextricably entwined: believing (present condition of being fully persuaded of Who Christ is), obedience (without obedience to the Lord’s commands there is no basis for claiming to believe) and endurance (without steadfastness unto the end, all will fail). It is as these three components of being a Christian are brought together that we understand what it means to be in Christ, and that outside of Him is rejection by God! Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6); there is no other way – the Way to life is narrow and exclusive, which is why few there be that find it (Matthew 7:14). We live in a day of exponential interest in spirituality, but none of that will hold any weight when standing before God, for it all lies outside of Christ.
Despite Paul’s strong emphasis on our being in Christ, there are Evangelicals today (like the late Billy Graham and Robert Schuller, as two examples) who have plainly stated that there will be those in heaven who have not known Christ; however, there is no room for such heresy here.34 There is only one Mediator between God (with Whom we all have to do) and man, and that is Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:5); it’s not Buddha, nor Mohammed, nor Mary – access to the Father is available only through Jesus (John 14:6). We must be wary and vigilant to identify, or mark, those who have departed from this narrow truth of the Scriptures (Romans 16:17), those who skulk about in sheep’s clothing appearing to be what they are not. Unfortunately, Evangelicals today have taken a positive-only approach and, at best, will only speak of the wolves in such obscure terms that it is virtually impossible to identify them, or, more likely, the wolves are not mentioned at all.
Paul goes on to identify that for which God has predestined us: adoption. Adoption is the process by which those who are not part of a family are brought into one, with the full benefits of natural children. However, in this case, not only were we not a part of God’s family, but we were also dead to Him (Ephesians 2:5); yet, in His vast grace and mercy, God predetermined that if we are found to be in Christ, then we are considered to be children within His family! Clearly, it is vitally important that we understand how we come to be in Christ, the Lord’s expectations of us when we are there, and how we retain our position in Christ. Let’s briefly review these to ensure that we understand the will of God in this matter.
1. How to be in Christ. As we have learned, believing is far more than a mental assent to something; after evaluation, we become convinced of the veracity of Who Jesus is and what He has done to buy us out of sin.35 This is not just a past persuasion, but this conviction of the Truth must be a continuously present reality. We can see this by paying attention to how this word is used in passages like John 3:15-16: it is in the active voice (the whosoever is carrying out the action of believing), and it is in the present tense (the whosoever must be continually believing). Believing is open to anyone, but unless they adhere to the restrictive guidelines that God has placed upon it, they will be among those who are unable to find the Strait Gate (Matthew 7:14; John 14:6).
2. How to live in Christ. Jesus said: “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Our love for Him demonstrates our conviction that He is the Truth; as we are in Christ, His command is that we must then live in obedience to (keep) His commandments. Conversely, if we do not keep His commands, then it is evident that we do not love Him. We cannot be in Christ without obeying Him – this is what a belief in Christ requires. “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep [are keeping (present tense)] his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:3-4).36
3. How to remain in Christ. Jesus clarified this: “Abide in me, and I in you” (John 15:4a); abide is in the imperative mood – it is a command to remain in Him, and in the active voice, which means that we (the understood plural subject) must do the abiding.37 Jesus went on to explain this a little further: “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love …” (John 15:10); here is the key to remaining in Christ: obedience to His commands! As noted earlier, when we face a command from the Lord, we have a choice to make: will we obey or will we disobey? This is why abide in John 15:4 is in the active voice: it is His command but it is up to us as to how we will respond to it. This is also the reason why the Scriptures warn us against being deceived (Matthew 24:4), about failing to remain steadfast (1 Corinthians 15:58), and to be alert lest our deceptive hearts turn away from faith in Christ (Hebrews 3:12).
In our relationship with God, there is no place for arrogance; we are told that our adoption is by Jesus Christ to himself. The Lord Jesus Christ, by means of His sacrifice on the cross and His resurrection, completed all that is necessary for my adoption; it has nothing whatsoever to do with any personal merits or good works. Paul understood this very clearly, and warned against arrogance regarding the position that we have in Christ. To the Romans, he explained that we are grafted into Christ (the Olive Tree) by faith, but if we should permit our faith to fail, then we will be cut off since the basis for being in Christ (our faith) is no longer present (Romans 11:17-22; cp. Hebrews 3:12). Therefore, it is as we continue to abide in Christ that our adoption by God through Christ remains in place – all that we have is contingent upon remaining in Him!
Finding favor with God has never changed: it has always been by faith in Him; “But without [apart from] faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh [is coming] to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek [are seeking] him” (Hebrews 11:6).38 Whether foreshadowed in the promises and practices of the OT or realized with Christ’s resurrection, all of humanity from all times comes to God through faith in the one Mediator (1 Timothy 2:5), the Lamb of God Who was slain from before creation (Revelation 13:8). God has extended adoption to those who remain faithfully in Christ!
Predestinated comes from a Greek word (proorizo) that means to define or mark out the boundaries or limits for, and then the concept of doing so before hand.33 God, in His infinite wisdom, did pre-determine some things for the faithful in Christ Jesus (including Paul and the saints of Ephesus – verse one); we have already noted that being holy and without blame before Him is part of what He has determined before creation for those who are in Christ. Jesus said that if we are loving Him (an obvious prerequisite to being found in Him) then we must be living in obedience to His commands as the only means for being holy (John 14:15) – this is what God has pre-determined for us from eternity past (Ephesians 2:10; 2 Timothy 1:9). Lest we view this in terms of salvation (as the Calvinists), we must not lose sight of the fact that God’s eternal choice is those who are in Christ – His choice does not place anyone in Christ! Salvation will come to anyone who, through evaluation and believing, has placed his faith in Christ (John 3:18), and then remains faithful to the Lord unto the end (Matthew 24:13). There are several critical things that are inextricably entwined: believing (present condition of being fully persuaded of Who Christ is), obedience (without obedience to the Lord’s commands there is no basis for claiming to believe) and endurance (without steadfastness unto the end, all will fail). It is as these three components of being a Christian are brought together that we understand what it means to be in Christ, and that outside of Him is rejection by God! Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6); there is no other way – the Way to life is narrow and exclusive, which is why few there be that find it (Matthew 7:14). We live in a day of exponential interest in spirituality, but none of that will hold any weight when standing before God, for it all lies outside of Christ.
Despite Paul’s strong emphasis on our being in Christ, there are Evangelicals today (like the late Billy Graham and Robert Schuller, as two examples) who have plainly stated that there will be those in heaven who have not known Christ; however, there is no room for such heresy here.34 There is only one Mediator between God (with Whom we all have to do) and man, and that is Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:5); it’s not Buddha, nor Mohammed, nor Mary – access to the Father is available only through Jesus (John 14:6). We must be wary and vigilant to identify, or mark, those who have departed from this narrow truth of the Scriptures (Romans 16:17), those who skulk about in sheep’s clothing appearing to be what they are not. Unfortunately, Evangelicals today have taken a positive-only approach and, at best, will only speak of the wolves in such obscure terms that it is virtually impossible to identify them, or, more likely, the wolves are not mentioned at all.
Paul goes on to identify that for which God has predestined us: adoption. Adoption is the process by which those who are not part of a family are brought into one, with the full benefits of natural children. However, in this case, not only were we not a part of God’s family, but we were also dead to Him (Ephesians 2:5); yet, in His vast grace and mercy, God predetermined that if we are found to be in Christ, then we are considered to be children within His family! Clearly, it is vitally important that we understand how we come to be in Christ, the Lord’s expectations of us when we are there, and how we retain our position in Christ. Let’s briefly review these to ensure that we understand the will of God in this matter.
1. How to be in Christ. As we have learned, believing is far more than a mental assent to something; after evaluation, we become convinced of the veracity of Who Jesus is and what He has done to buy us out of sin.35 This is not just a past persuasion, but this conviction of the Truth must be a continuously present reality. We can see this by paying attention to how this word is used in passages like John 3:15-16: it is in the active voice (the whosoever is carrying out the action of believing), and it is in the present tense (the whosoever must be continually believing). Believing is open to anyone, but unless they adhere to the restrictive guidelines that God has placed upon it, they will be among those who are unable to find the Strait Gate (Matthew 7:14; John 14:6).
2. How to live in Christ. Jesus said: “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Our love for Him demonstrates our conviction that He is the Truth; as we are in Christ, His command is that we must then live in obedience to (keep) His commandments. Conversely, if we do not keep His commands, then it is evident that we do not love Him. We cannot be in Christ without obeying Him – this is what a belief in Christ requires. “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep [are keeping (present tense)] his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:3-4).36
3. How to remain in Christ. Jesus clarified this: “Abide in me, and I in you” (John 15:4a); abide is in the imperative mood – it is a command to remain in Him, and in the active voice, which means that we (the understood plural subject) must do the abiding.37 Jesus went on to explain this a little further: “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love …” (John 15:10); here is the key to remaining in Christ: obedience to His commands! As noted earlier, when we face a command from the Lord, we have a choice to make: will we obey or will we disobey? This is why abide in John 15:4 is in the active voice: it is His command but it is up to us as to how we will respond to it. This is also the reason why the Scriptures warn us against being deceived (Matthew 24:4), about failing to remain steadfast (1 Corinthians 15:58), and to be alert lest our deceptive hearts turn away from faith in Christ (Hebrews 3:12).
In our relationship with God, there is no place for arrogance; we are told that our adoption is by Jesus Christ to himself. The Lord Jesus Christ, by means of His sacrifice on the cross and His resurrection, completed all that is necessary for my adoption; it has nothing whatsoever to do with any personal merits or good works. Paul understood this very clearly, and warned against arrogance regarding the position that we have in Christ. To the Romans, he explained that we are grafted into Christ (the Olive Tree) by faith, but if we should permit our faith to fail, then we will be cut off since the basis for being in Christ (our faith) is no longer present (Romans 11:17-22; cp. Hebrews 3:12). Therefore, it is as we continue to abide in Christ that our adoption by God through Christ remains in place – all that we have is contingent upon remaining in Him!
Finding favor with God has never changed: it has always been by faith in Him; “But without [apart from] faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh [is coming] to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek [are seeking] him” (Hebrews 11:6).38 Whether foreshadowed in the promises and practices of the OT or realized with Christ’s resurrection, all of humanity from all times comes to God through faith in the one Mediator (1 Timothy 2:5), the Lamb of God Who was slain from before creation (Revelation 13:8). God has extended adoption to those who remain faithfully in Christ!
Teresa of Calcutta
According to the good pleasure of his will – herein lies the reason for all of this; God did it to show His favor. He adopted us as His children through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, His Son, according to His eternal purposes. If anything tells us that God desires to have a relationship with those whom He created in His own image, this has to be it! In a day when we are urged by everything around us to “look out for number one,” sometimes it is difficult to realize that I am not the sole reason for God’s eternal purposes, and that His intentions are far higher than mine ever will be in this life. This fixation with “number one” even finds its expression among Evangelicals; how many times have we heard variations of “Jesus would have died for one person, for one sinner,”39 where the expressed purpose is to show the greatness of God’s love, but what shines through is the importance of the individual. Yes, God has demonstrated His love for man by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us, but that does not give us license to think more highly of ourselves than we ought, and to become arrogant in our sin. Teresa of Calcutta, who made the quoted statement, did so to show the focus of her mission on helping even one person, yet she did not even believe that Jesus was the only way to God: “My own faith will lead me to God, ... So if they have believed in their god very strongly, if they have faith, surely they will be saved.”40 Within the reasoning of Teresa, Jesus really did not have to die; salvation, for her, is through faith – sincere faith in anything! Man has become so significant in his own eyes that he feels capable of creating his own way of salvation! Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). Within the salvation that God has provided for mankind, there is no room for any pride in who we might think that we are. Through faith in Christ, we have been bought with a price, purchased out of the death camp of sin, and now our purpose must be to bring glory to God (1 Corinthians 6:20) and be holy before Him (Ephesians 1:4; 1 Peter 1:16). Our focus, as we journey through life, must be on Jesus (Hebrews 12:1-2) and not on ourselves; the former will lead to a life that will bring glory to God, and the latter to a preoccupation with who we are (or think that we are) that will ultimately lead to rejection by the Lord Whom we might still claim to serve (Matthew 7:21-23).
6. To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
The fact of God’s predetermination that we, in Christ, are adopted into His family as children, should incite in us joy and praise to the Lord. How is it that God, Who is eternally holy, is able to bring into His family, children who have been dead in sins (Ephesians 2:5)? Holiness is God’s greatest attribute – proclaimed unceasingly by heavenly beings (Isaiah 6:3; Revelation 4:8), and He cannot abide evil (Psalm 5:4). It is the holiness of God that requires a man to be bought out of sin, to be clothed in the righteousness of His Son, and only then to be counted worthy of coming into His presence as His adopted child. God’s perfect justice required that payment for sin be made, and His great love for humanity desired to have communion with the creature made in His image; both His justice and love were tempered by His holiness – the plan from eternity past was the only way to satisfy His holiness, justice, and love. It is God’s grace expressed to His creation that brought the Word from the glories of heaven to earth in human flesh in order to pay the price for sin – a price that man could not pay! The Lamb of God came as the expression of God’s grace in order to open a way for man to be reconciled with his Creator; through the completed work of Jesus, God’s justice for sin was met, His holiness was not compromised, His love was revealed, and His mercy found its voice. Truly, His grace is glorious, beyond comprehension: His mercy desired that none should perish (2 Peter 3:9), His justice acknowledged that no one is righteous (Romans 3:10), and by His amazing grace He can say that, if we are abiding in Christ, then are we not only accepted by Him, but also become His children.
There is nothing within us that is worthy of God’s grace; it is only through abiding in the Vine, through our faithful continuance in Christ, that we are accepted: honored with blessings and surrounded with favor.41 The critical phrase that we must never lose sight of is “in the beloved” – in Christ! Nothing that we can do will ever serve to merit God’s favor – the full work of salvation is complete in Christ, and in Him alone; we must simply accept what He has done for us (faith), and faithfully persevere in obedience to Him.
7. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;
8. Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence;
When we think of redemption, it is its root, redeem, that typically comes to mind, and as a result, we arrive at the concept of buying something back.42 However, in the matter of Christ’s redemption of us through His blood, the transaction is much more complex than we might realize at first. When we are born, we have a sin-nature (we are of the family of Adam: sinners); we are not sinners because of what we do, rather, we sin because we are born with a sinful nature. “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5); through Adam sin and death have entered into the world, and it is the destiny for all who are born (Romans 5:12). Nevertheless, God, in His mercy, has ascribed a time of innocence – a time when we do not know right from wrong. Jesus made it very clear that infants and small children are a part of His kingdom: “Suffer little children [paidion (pahee-dee’-on), an infant or small child], and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14).43 Upon birth, God records our names in the Book of Life that He is keeping, and this is in accordance with the little children being a part of His kingdom. However, the Lord is also very clear that the one who sins has his name removed from the Book of Life (Exodus 32:33), which means that this applies to everyone who enters the age of accountability (understanding) and remains unrepentant before God. The very young child can neither accept nor reject what the Lord Jesus accomplished on the cross, for he has no ability to understand anything (hence, his innocence). However, once he comes to know right from wrong, he then stands in need of a Savior from sin. At that point, his name is removed from the Book of Life, and it will only be re-entered through personal faith in the blood of Christ to bring salvation – until we come to the Lord in faith, our names are not in the Book of Life.
Therefore, if we think in terms of redemption for the sinner (as in buying back), it must be within the terms of the sinner being purchased out of sin to become a little child of God again. Jesus clarified this: “Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted [literally: unless ye be turned], and become as little children [paidion], ye shall not [absolutely never: in Greek, this is the strongest negative possible formed by two negatives (ou and me) with a subjunctive/aorist verb] enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3).44 The only correct application of the word redemption, within salvation, is that in our innocence, we belonged to the Lord and now, through our active faith in the payment for sin that Jesus made, we have returned to that child-like position in Him. We are bought out of sin when we place our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and our names are written into the Book of Life by that same faith. In ourselves, we can do nothing to have our names recorded in the Book of Life; being a sinner automatically carries a death sentence: “for the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). However, this is not only physical death but also, more significantly, an eternal separation from God in the Lake of Fire: “And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15). Death hangs over the head of every person on earth! However, through Jesus’ death and resurrection, a way has been made to change the eternal destiny of the soul; nevertheless, it only applies to me when I, by faith, accept what He has done for me, and all of mankind. In Christ, we have been ransomed (redeemed) out of sin; He paid the price (death) for our sin so that we are able to consider ourselves “to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:11). Therefore, when we see the word redemption within this context, we must understand all that it represents (the price that Jesus paid to buy us out of sin), and our obligation to live in faithfulness to the Lord. Jesus stated very plainly: “he that shall endure [hupomeno – to remain faithful through trials] unto the end, the same [a demonstrative pronoun in the Greek that means “this one!”] shall [will (future tense verb)] be saved” (Matthew 24:13).45 It is only as we remain faithful to the Lord that we will one day enjoy the splendors of heaven with Him: “He that overcometh [is overcoming, a present tense life of victory in the Lord (faithfully obeying Him)] shall inherit all things …” (Revelation 21:7a).46 What we must not miss is that just as surely as faith in the Lord Jesus places us in Him, so being unfaithful will see that relationship broken. “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief [apistia: no faith, unfaithfulness], in departing [becoming apostate] from the living God” (Hebrews 3:12).47 We have been warned – let us take heed!
Through His shed blood, Christ fulfilled forever the sacrificial practices so carefully prescribed in the Law of Moses.48 “... Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption [deliverance] for us” (Hebrews 9:12).49 The deliverance from sin that Christ paid for us at the cross is eternal, unlike the OT sacrifices that could never completely bring freedom from the penalty of sin (Hebrews 10:4), which is why they were required to be made on a continual basis – they merely foreshadowed what the Lord would accomplish (Hebrews 10:1). Even though Christ’s death and resurrection has made everlasting salvation available to everyone (1 John 2:2), it is only available through Him (the Strait Gate of Matthew 7:13-14; cp. John 14:6), and unless we remain faithful to Him, we will lose it (Matthew 10:22). Jesus commanded: ye must remain in Me (John 15:4, literal); the importance of choosing to remain in Christ cannot be over emphasized. “And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel ...” (Colossians 1:21-23a). The Scriptures are so clear on this matter, yet so many professing Christians fail to comprehend this important truth. We have been reconciled to God by faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus; as long as we continue to hold our faith in Christ, He will present us to God the Father as holy, unblameable, and unreproveable. “For we are made partakers of [we share in] Christ, [what follows is the condition for becoming partakers] if we hold [should hold fast or should keep possession of] the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end” (Hebrews 3:14).50 We will share eternity with Christ if we retain our position in Him unto the end (through faithful obedience: overcoming), and we’ve already seen that to become faithless means to depart from God and become apostate (Hebrews 3:12).
We have the forgiveness of sins in Christ; our redemption from sin means that we have been forgiven! We, who were once dead in our sins, have been made alive in Christ; the penalty for our sins has not only been paid, but our offenses have been forgiven! It is not that we are delivered from sin, and then must spend the rest of our days paying for the price of our deliverance (which we could never do since we cannot buy our freedom to begin with); we are forgiven the debt of sin that we could never pay. As we have already seen, we are to live lives that are holy and without blame before God (which means we must be in Christ) – this is God’s purpose for everyone who is in Christ (Ephesians 2:10). However, this must not be looked upon as repaying God for the freedom from sin that He has accorded us – rather, it is a life lived in gratitude for the wondrous work that He has accomplished for us in Christ. Because of the deliverance and forgiveness that is ours, why would we want to do anything less than walk in a manner that is pleasing to God (obedience)? This is not legalism; rather, this is a heartfelt, life-changing expression of gratitude for what God has done through the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. If we are abiding in Christ, then our sins are forgiven, and we are seen by God as being holy – why would we consider anything other than obedience to His commands? Jesus said: “If ye love me, keep [a command to attend to carefully to] my commandments” (John 14:15); the Apostle John declared: “And he that keepeth [to attend carefully to] his [God’s] commandments dwelleth [abideth] in him [God], and he in him” (1 John 3:24a).51 Obedience is critical to remaining in Christ – it is the God-required evidence of our faith in the Lord (James 2:17).
It is out of God’s rich storehouse of grace that He has brought our deliverance from sin and accorded us His forgiveness. There is a sense in which these acts should not be surprising but, rather, a natural product and an expected end of God’s rich grace. The most significant act of redemption is a product of God’s equally significant grace.
Wherein (in which) refers back to the riches of His grace, in which He did abound to us in all wisdom and understanding.52 A reminder: the us includes the holy-ones (saints) at Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus and Paul; there is a general grace of God that all of humanity enjoys, but this is not what is being discussed here. We read: “… pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:44b-45). The grace that Paul is writing about is that by which God has brought His redemption and the forgiveness of sins to us, and all of this makes us acceptable before Him, but only in Christ. This grace is available to all of mankind, but is only expressed to those who place their trust in the work that Jesus completed through His death and resurrection. Therein is the marvel of the richness of God’s grace – it is open to whosoever will! Not only is God’s grace extended immeasurably to everyone, but it is all a part of His wise plan of which Paul is about to provide additional teaching.
Unfortunately, it is this marvelous grace, that perfect blend of God’s mercy and justice that brings us into a place of holiness before Him in Christ, that modern Evangelicals skew toward mercy through their overemphasis of God’s love for us; as a result, perhaps unwittingly, they have destroyed God’s grace altogether. There can be no place for salvation as hell-fire insurance (i.e.: believe, pray a prayer, claim eternity in heaven, and continue as before) without first elevating the mercy of God to a place where His justice is lost. There is no other way to rationalize including those who propagate error and blasphemy within the company of the saved! Such carelessness is only possible through a focus on the mercy of God while turning a blind eye to the demands of His justice in light of His holiness. We cannot judge the heart of any man, but we are called to be discerning of his works: “Ye shall know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16). Why are we to identify them? “Now I beseech [to call to one’s side, to summon] you, brethren, mark [identify and watch out for] them which cause divisions [not between brethren, but between an individual and God] and offences [opportunities to sin] contrary to [para, alongside of (the teaching does not need to be pure falsehood)] the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them” (Romans 16:17).53 Unless we first identify those who are enticing others away from the truths of God’s Word, how can we turn away from them?54 We (those who are in Christ by faith) must exercise discernment; we must judge the works of others according to the standard of the Word of God (John 7:24). Contrary to modern thinking, Jesus has commanded us to judge righteous judgment, which can only come through a correct application of the Word of God. If we fail in this, we not only place ourselves in jeopardy of being snared by error or compromise, but we are also walking in disobedience to the Lord’s exhortation. “He that believeth [is believing] on the Son hath [is having] everlasting life: and he that believeth not [is disobeying] the Son shall [absolutely] not see life; but the wrath of God abideth [is abiding] on him” (John 3:36).55 Is obedience to the Lord important? Clearly, it is critical to continue abiding in Christ; it is the disobedient who are abiding under God’s wrath. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Romans 8:1); as we compare Scripture with Scripture, it becomes crystal-clear that the disobedient are not abiding in Christ but are abiding under God’s condemnation! Our priority must be to remain faithfully in Christ, as those who are overcoming through obedience to the Lord of grace!
The grace of God has been extended to us in abundance: “… where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Romans 5:20). In His wisdom, God has made the full payment for sin without compromising His perfect justice and without tainting His pure holiness, so that He is able to show His loving mercy to sinful mankind and, thereby, restore His fellowship with those who bear His image. His understanding of our condition enabled Him to make a Way for us to accept His saving grace that is only available in Christ! It is God Who prepared the Way of salvation for His fallen creatures, and He did it before they were made. Christ, the eternal Word Who became flesh, is identified as having been slain “from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8); God’s plan of redemption was in place before creation began. God’s grace was ready for Adam and Eve’s sin, and He revealed it to them in the Garden of Eden: “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21).
9. Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:
The word mystery (musterion), within our modern understanding, means knowledge withheld, but, within the context of Scripture, it means truth revealed, but only to those who are in Christ and have the Spirit of God abiding within.56 Rather than bearing the concept of being incomprehensible, it carries the thought of something that requires the touch of God in order to be understood. Jesus told His disciples: “Unto you it is [has been] given [perfect tense, passive mood (it is God Who has given)] to know [ginosko, to come to know] the mystery [musterion] of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without [do not believe], all these things are done in parables: That [in order that (Jesus now explains His purpose for using parables)] seeing they may see [will see; *the subjunctive mood, in a purpose statement, acts as a statement of intent (not possibility)], and not perceive; and hearing they may hear [will hear*], and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them” (Mark 4:11-12).57 This might seem counter-intuitive to us, but we must keep in mind that a mystery would only be revealed to those who were in communion with God; for most of those who heard Jesus’ parables, they could hear what He was saying but were unable to discern the truth that Jesus included in it. Elsewhere we read: “But the natural man [those who are without] receiveth [accepts] not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him [for to him it is foolishness]: neither can he know [he is not able to come to understand] them, because they are spiritually discerned [because it is being discerned spiritually; requiring the aid of the Spirit of God (passive voice, it is the Spirit’s work)]” (1 Corinthians 2:14).58 Spiritual discernment comes only through the guidance of the Spirit of God – it is not something that we generate through our own efforts. The natural man (outside of Christ) cannot understand the mystery of God, because the Spirit of God is not abiding within him in order to guide him into all truth (John 16:13).
After expounding on the great grace of God that He extended to man, Paul notes that through this, God has lifted the veil just a little more on His will. It was inconceivable to the Jewish mind of Paul’s day that God would offer deliverance from sins to the Gentiles; yet God’s infinite grace did that very thing. An error of the Jews was that they limited God’s grace to those under the Law of Moses – yet God’s grace has always been applied by faith alone (Romans 4:16). Throughout the Law of Moses, God’s grace and mercy were available to the faithful foreigner: “One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you” (Exodus 12:49). No differentiation was made between the Israelite and the non-Israelite who desired to know God. In His mercy, God was not willing that any man should perish – and this is fully demonstrated in the grace that He still offers to all of mankind. Today we accept without question, the rich grace of God that is extended to those outside of the Jewish nation, to the point that Evangelicals and Liberals alike will trample His grace underfoot in their zeal for unity. It appears that anything is acceptable except that exclusive Narrow Way that leads to life – a Way that only a few will find (Matthew 7:14). It might seem that God’s desire in the area of Ecumenical unity has been veiled; not that God is hiding what He has revealed, but generally speaking, the eyes of men are growing dim toward the truths of God (they see, but do not understand), and it shows up so blatantly in this area. There are those who speak loudly of the need for unity among “Christians,” yet they are blind to the Word of God that presents His design for unity that can only be realized in Christ.
Again, we see God’s favor (good pleasure) in the grace that He extends to all of mankind, with an additional note that all of this lies within His eternal plan (purposed in Himself). God was not influenced by the plight of Adam and Eve after they had sinned; in His foreknowledge, He knew the choices that they would make – He received no outside aid in the development of His plan for mankind. The sinfulness of man did not catch God off guard, we are not living with God’s Plan B today, but, rather, we are living in the wonder of the fulfillment of His perfect plan for us in Christ.
10. That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
Today, we hear much of the “dispensation of grace” from most sectors of Evangelicalism, by which they mean the current time (or dispensation) in which we live: the Age of Grace, or also known as the Church Age. However, dispensation, as it is used here, makes no reference to, nor does it provide any support for the dispensationalist’s artificially-segmented theology; in truth, God’s grace to humanity found expression in the Garden of Eden, and it will continue to the end of time.59
This word dispensation (oikonomia) has to do with the management of things; it comes from oikonomos, the word for a steward, and therefore, it typically applies to running a household.60 It includes administration or stewardship responsibilities – basically, the handling and dispensing of things needed to carry on a prescribed work. In this case, we are told that what is being administered is the fullness of times when all things will come under Christ’s authority. As we look ahead, we can see two separate occasions when this will come to be: the Millennium, and the New Heaven and Earth. During the Millennium, Christ will rule over all who are on the earth – namely, those who come through the time of the wrath of God and those who are born during the subsequent one thousand years. “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection [the rapture]: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years” (Revelation 20:6). We are told that Jesus is going to be shepherding all peoples with an iron staff (Revelation 12:5, literal); all peoples (ta ethnos) speaks of foreigners (Gentiles contrasted with Jews, unbelievers with believers, etc.), and it will be during the Millennium when Jesus will shepherd those who do not know Him as their Redeemer (foreigners).61 This will be a time when all things will be brought under the direct control of Christ (the glorified saints will reign with the Lord and will be His priests to those who are born during this time62), a time when the will of the Lord will be done on earth just as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10); yet, even during this time, sin will be present – there will be compliance but most will not accept Jesus as their Redeemer. However, the ultimate fulfillment will come in the New Heaven and Earth, when there will no longer be any foreigners (ta ethnos) – everything will be completed (the full meaning of fullness [pleroma]) and time will have been swallowed up by eternity. God created us within the framework of time, and so we have great difficulty grasping what eternity will be like. We’ve seen that the plan of God for mankind stretches from before the foundations of the world were laid, and now we see that it extends beyond the end of time itself – a future when all will be brought to completion within the design of God. This is a concept that is well beyond our comprehension, for we are inextricably tied to time. Here is foretold a gathering together, a time when all things will be brought together in Christ; there will be complete unity on that day. Today, only a small number find access in Christ to the Narrow Way that leads to life eternal (John 14:6); this will be an eternal day when all who are in Christ will be together with Him forever.
God will bring about this unity at the fullness of times, a future that is known only to Him, and, most importantly, He will do the gathering! The word translated as all things bears the neuter gender in Greek, and so it refers to everything, not just people or angels. Jesus said: “Everything that the Father is giving to Me, to Me it will come …” (John 6:37a, literal); He affirmed what Paul presents here: there is coming a time when everything (it also is neuter) will be Christ’s.63 The impact of sin fell upon all of creation, not just mankind, and this points forward to a time when all of creation will be restored in Christ. “Because the creature [creation] itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Romans 8:21-22).64 As John beholds the New Heaven and Earth, God assures him: “Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:5a).
6. To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
The fact of God’s predetermination that we, in Christ, are adopted into His family as children, should incite in us joy and praise to the Lord. How is it that God, Who is eternally holy, is able to bring into His family, children who have been dead in sins (Ephesians 2:5)? Holiness is God’s greatest attribute – proclaimed unceasingly by heavenly beings (Isaiah 6:3; Revelation 4:8), and He cannot abide evil (Psalm 5:4). It is the holiness of God that requires a man to be bought out of sin, to be clothed in the righteousness of His Son, and only then to be counted worthy of coming into His presence as His adopted child. God’s perfect justice required that payment for sin be made, and His great love for humanity desired to have communion with the creature made in His image; both His justice and love were tempered by His holiness – the plan from eternity past was the only way to satisfy His holiness, justice, and love. It is God’s grace expressed to His creation that brought the Word from the glories of heaven to earth in human flesh in order to pay the price for sin – a price that man could not pay! The Lamb of God came as the expression of God’s grace in order to open a way for man to be reconciled with his Creator; through the completed work of Jesus, God’s justice for sin was met, His holiness was not compromised, His love was revealed, and His mercy found its voice. Truly, His grace is glorious, beyond comprehension: His mercy desired that none should perish (2 Peter 3:9), His justice acknowledged that no one is righteous (Romans 3:10), and by His amazing grace He can say that, if we are abiding in Christ, then are we not only accepted by Him, but also become His children.
There is nothing within us that is worthy of God’s grace; it is only through abiding in the Vine, through our faithful continuance in Christ, that we are accepted: honored with blessings and surrounded with favor.41 The critical phrase that we must never lose sight of is “in the beloved” – in Christ! Nothing that we can do will ever serve to merit God’s favor – the full work of salvation is complete in Christ, and in Him alone; we must simply accept what He has done for us (faith), and faithfully persevere in obedience to Him.
7. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;
8. Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence;
When we think of redemption, it is its root, redeem, that typically comes to mind, and as a result, we arrive at the concept of buying something back.42 However, in the matter of Christ’s redemption of us through His blood, the transaction is much more complex than we might realize at first. When we are born, we have a sin-nature (we are of the family of Adam: sinners); we are not sinners because of what we do, rather, we sin because we are born with a sinful nature. “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5); through Adam sin and death have entered into the world, and it is the destiny for all who are born (Romans 5:12). Nevertheless, God, in His mercy, has ascribed a time of innocence – a time when we do not know right from wrong. Jesus made it very clear that infants and small children are a part of His kingdom: “Suffer little children [paidion (pahee-dee’-on), an infant or small child], and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14).43 Upon birth, God records our names in the Book of Life that He is keeping, and this is in accordance with the little children being a part of His kingdom. However, the Lord is also very clear that the one who sins has his name removed from the Book of Life (Exodus 32:33), which means that this applies to everyone who enters the age of accountability (understanding) and remains unrepentant before God. The very young child can neither accept nor reject what the Lord Jesus accomplished on the cross, for he has no ability to understand anything (hence, his innocence). However, once he comes to know right from wrong, he then stands in need of a Savior from sin. At that point, his name is removed from the Book of Life, and it will only be re-entered through personal faith in the blood of Christ to bring salvation – until we come to the Lord in faith, our names are not in the Book of Life.
Therefore, if we think in terms of redemption for the sinner (as in buying back), it must be within the terms of the sinner being purchased out of sin to become a little child of God again. Jesus clarified this: “Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted [literally: unless ye be turned], and become as little children [paidion], ye shall not [absolutely never: in Greek, this is the strongest negative possible formed by two negatives (ou and me) with a subjunctive/aorist verb] enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3).44 The only correct application of the word redemption, within salvation, is that in our innocence, we belonged to the Lord and now, through our active faith in the payment for sin that Jesus made, we have returned to that child-like position in Him. We are bought out of sin when we place our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and our names are written into the Book of Life by that same faith. In ourselves, we can do nothing to have our names recorded in the Book of Life; being a sinner automatically carries a death sentence: “for the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). However, this is not only physical death but also, more significantly, an eternal separation from God in the Lake of Fire: “And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15). Death hangs over the head of every person on earth! However, through Jesus’ death and resurrection, a way has been made to change the eternal destiny of the soul; nevertheless, it only applies to me when I, by faith, accept what He has done for me, and all of mankind. In Christ, we have been ransomed (redeemed) out of sin; He paid the price (death) for our sin so that we are able to consider ourselves “to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:11). Therefore, when we see the word redemption within this context, we must understand all that it represents (the price that Jesus paid to buy us out of sin), and our obligation to live in faithfulness to the Lord. Jesus stated very plainly: “he that shall endure [hupomeno – to remain faithful through trials] unto the end, the same [a demonstrative pronoun in the Greek that means “this one!”] shall [will (future tense verb)] be saved” (Matthew 24:13).45 It is only as we remain faithful to the Lord that we will one day enjoy the splendors of heaven with Him: “He that overcometh [is overcoming, a present tense life of victory in the Lord (faithfully obeying Him)] shall inherit all things …” (Revelation 21:7a).46 What we must not miss is that just as surely as faith in the Lord Jesus places us in Him, so being unfaithful will see that relationship broken. “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief [apistia: no faith, unfaithfulness], in departing [becoming apostate] from the living God” (Hebrews 3:12).47 We have been warned – let us take heed!
Through His shed blood, Christ fulfilled forever the sacrificial practices so carefully prescribed in the Law of Moses.48 “... Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption [deliverance] for us” (Hebrews 9:12).49 The deliverance from sin that Christ paid for us at the cross is eternal, unlike the OT sacrifices that could never completely bring freedom from the penalty of sin (Hebrews 10:4), which is why they were required to be made on a continual basis – they merely foreshadowed what the Lord would accomplish (Hebrews 10:1). Even though Christ’s death and resurrection has made everlasting salvation available to everyone (1 John 2:2), it is only available through Him (the Strait Gate of Matthew 7:13-14; cp. John 14:6), and unless we remain faithful to Him, we will lose it (Matthew 10:22). Jesus commanded: ye must remain in Me (John 15:4, literal); the importance of choosing to remain in Christ cannot be over emphasized. “And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel ...” (Colossians 1:21-23a). The Scriptures are so clear on this matter, yet so many professing Christians fail to comprehend this important truth. We have been reconciled to God by faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus; as long as we continue to hold our faith in Christ, He will present us to God the Father as holy, unblameable, and unreproveable. “For we are made partakers of [we share in] Christ, [what follows is the condition for becoming partakers] if we hold [should hold fast or should keep possession of] the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end” (Hebrews 3:14).50 We will share eternity with Christ if we retain our position in Him unto the end (through faithful obedience: overcoming), and we’ve already seen that to become faithless means to depart from God and become apostate (Hebrews 3:12).
We have the forgiveness of sins in Christ; our redemption from sin means that we have been forgiven! We, who were once dead in our sins, have been made alive in Christ; the penalty for our sins has not only been paid, but our offenses have been forgiven! It is not that we are delivered from sin, and then must spend the rest of our days paying for the price of our deliverance (which we could never do since we cannot buy our freedom to begin with); we are forgiven the debt of sin that we could never pay. As we have already seen, we are to live lives that are holy and without blame before God (which means we must be in Christ) – this is God’s purpose for everyone who is in Christ (Ephesians 2:10). However, this must not be looked upon as repaying God for the freedom from sin that He has accorded us – rather, it is a life lived in gratitude for the wondrous work that He has accomplished for us in Christ. Because of the deliverance and forgiveness that is ours, why would we want to do anything less than walk in a manner that is pleasing to God (obedience)? This is not legalism; rather, this is a heartfelt, life-changing expression of gratitude for what God has done through the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. If we are abiding in Christ, then our sins are forgiven, and we are seen by God as being holy – why would we consider anything other than obedience to His commands? Jesus said: “If ye love me, keep [a command to attend to carefully to] my commandments” (John 14:15); the Apostle John declared: “And he that keepeth [to attend carefully to] his [God’s] commandments dwelleth [abideth] in him [God], and he in him” (1 John 3:24a).51 Obedience is critical to remaining in Christ – it is the God-required evidence of our faith in the Lord (James 2:17).
It is out of God’s rich storehouse of grace that He has brought our deliverance from sin and accorded us His forgiveness. There is a sense in which these acts should not be surprising but, rather, a natural product and an expected end of God’s rich grace. The most significant act of redemption is a product of God’s equally significant grace.
Wherein (in which) refers back to the riches of His grace, in which He did abound to us in all wisdom and understanding.52 A reminder: the us includes the holy-ones (saints) at Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus and Paul; there is a general grace of God that all of humanity enjoys, but this is not what is being discussed here. We read: “… pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:44b-45). The grace that Paul is writing about is that by which God has brought His redemption and the forgiveness of sins to us, and all of this makes us acceptable before Him, but only in Christ. This grace is available to all of mankind, but is only expressed to those who place their trust in the work that Jesus completed through His death and resurrection. Therein is the marvel of the richness of God’s grace – it is open to whosoever will! Not only is God’s grace extended immeasurably to everyone, but it is all a part of His wise plan of which Paul is about to provide additional teaching.
Unfortunately, it is this marvelous grace, that perfect blend of God’s mercy and justice that brings us into a place of holiness before Him in Christ, that modern Evangelicals skew toward mercy through their overemphasis of God’s love for us; as a result, perhaps unwittingly, they have destroyed God’s grace altogether. There can be no place for salvation as hell-fire insurance (i.e.: believe, pray a prayer, claim eternity in heaven, and continue as before) without first elevating the mercy of God to a place where His justice is lost. There is no other way to rationalize including those who propagate error and blasphemy within the company of the saved! Such carelessness is only possible through a focus on the mercy of God while turning a blind eye to the demands of His justice in light of His holiness. We cannot judge the heart of any man, but we are called to be discerning of his works: “Ye shall know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16). Why are we to identify them? “Now I beseech [to call to one’s side, to summon] you, brethren, mark [identify and watch out for] them which cause divisions [not between brethren, but between an individual and God] and offences [opportunities to sin] contrary to [para, alongside of (the teaching does not need to be pure falsehood)] the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them” (Romans 16:17).53 Unless we first identify those who are enticing others away from the truths of God’s Word, how can we turn away from them?54 We (those who are in Christ by faith) must exercise discernment; we must judge the works of others according to the standard of the Word of God (John 7:24). Contrary to modern thinking, Jesus has commanded us to judge righteous judgment, which can only come through a correct application of the Word of God. If we fail in this, we not only place ourselves in jeopardy of being snared by error or compromise, but we are also walking in disobedience to the Lord’s exhortation. “He that believeth [is believing] on the Son hath [is having] everlasting life: and he that believeth not [is disobeying] the Son shall [absolutely] not see life; but the wrath of God abideth [is abiding] on him” (John 3:36).55 Is obedience to the Lord important? Clearly, it is critical to continue abiding in Christ; it is the disobedient who are abiding under God’s wrath. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Romans 8:1); as we compare Scripture with Scripture, it becomes crystal-clear that the disobedient are not abiding in Christ but are abiding under God’s condemnation! Our priority must be to remain faithfully in Christ, as those who are overcoming through obedience to the Lord of grace!
The grace of God has been extended to us in abundance: “… where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Romans 5:20). In His wisdom, God has made the full payment for sin without compromising His perfect justice and without tainting His pure holiness, so that He is able to show His loving mercy to sinful mankind and, thereby, restore His fellowship with those who bear His image. His understanding of our condition enabled Him to make a Way for us to accept His saving grace that is only available in Christ! It is God Who prepared the Way of salvation for His fallen creatures, and He did it before they were made. Christ, the eternal Word Who became flesh, is identified as having been slain “from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8); God’s plan of redemption was in place before creation began. God’s grace was ready for Adam and Eve’s sin, and He revealed it to them in the Garden of Eden: “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21).
9. Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:
The word mystery (musterion), within our modern understanding, means knowledge withheld, but, within the context of Scripture, it means truth revealed, but only to those who are in Christ and have the Spirit of God abiding within.56 Rather than bearing the concept of being incomprehensible, it carries the thought of something that requires the touch of God in order to be understood. Jesus told His disciples: “Unto you it is [has been] given [perfect tense, passive mood (it is God Who has given)] to know [ginosko, to come to know] the mystery [musterion] of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without [do not believe], all these things are done in parables: That [in order that (Jesus now explains His purpose for using parables)] seeing they may see [will see; *the subjunctive mood, in a purpose statement, acts as a statement of intent (not possibility)], and not perceive; and hearing they may hear [will hear*], and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them” (Mark 4:11-12).57 This might seem counter-intuitive to us, but we must keep in mind that a mystery would only be revealed to those who were in communion with God; for most of those who heard Jesus’ parables, they could hear what He was saying but were unable to discern the truth that Jesus included in it. Elsewhere we read: “But the natural man [those who are without] receiveth [accepts] not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him [for to him it is foolishness]: neither can he know [he is not able to come to understand] them, because they are spiritually discerned [because it is being discerned spiritually; requiring the aid of the Spirit of God (passive voice, it is the Spirit’s work)]” (1 Corinthians 2:14).58 Spiritual discernment comes only through the guidance of the Spirit of God – it is not something that we generate through our own efforts. The natural man (outside of Christ) cannot understand the mystery of God, because the Spirit of God is not abiding within him in order to guide him into all truth (John 16:13).
After expounding on the great grace of God that He extended to man, Paul notes that through this, God has lifted the veil just a little more on His will. It was inconceivable to the Jewish mind of Paul’s day that God would offer deliverance from sins to the Gentiles; yet God’s infinite grace did that very thing. An error of the Jews was that they limited God’s grace to those under the Law of Moses – yet God’s grace has always been applied by faith alone (Romans 4:16). Throughout the Law of Moses, God’s grace and mercy were available to the faithful foreigner: “One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you” (Exodus 12:49). No differentiation was made between the Israelite and the non-Israelite who desired to know God. In His mercy, God was not willing that any man should perish – and this is fully demonstrated in the grace that He still offers to all of mankind. Today we accept without question, the rich grace of God that is extended to those outside of the Jewish nation, to the point that Evangelicals and Liberals alike will trample His grace underfoot in their zeal for unity. It appears that anything is acceptable except that exclusive Narrow Way that leads to life – a Way that only a few will find (Matthew 7:14). It might seem that God’s desire in the area of Ecumenical unity has been veiled; not that God is hiding what He has revealed, but generally speaking, the eyes of men are growing dim toward the truths of God (they see, but do not understand), and it shows up so blatantly in this area. There are those who speak loudly of the need for unity among “Christians,” yet they are blind to the Word of God that presents His design for unity that can only be realized in Christ.
Again, we see God’s favor (good pleasure) in the grace that He extends to all of mankind, with an additional note that all of this lies within His eternal plan (purposed in Himself). God was not influenced by the plight of Adam and Eve after they had sinned; in His foreknowledge, He knew the choices that they would make – He received no outside aid in the development of His plan for mankind. The sinfulness of man did not catch God off guard, we are not living with God’s Plan B today, but, rather, we are living in the wonder of the fulfillment of His perfect plan for us in Christ.
10. That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
Today, we hear much of the “dispensation of grace” from most sectors of Evangelicalism, by which they mean the current time (or dispensation) in which we live: the Age of Grace, or also known as the Church Age. However, dispensation, as it is used here, makes no reference to, nor does it provide any support for the dispensationalist’s artificially-segmented theology; in truth, God’s grace to humanity found expression in the Garden of Eden, and it will continue to the end of time.59
This word dispensation (oikonomia) has to do with the management of things; it comes from oikonomos, the word for a steward, and therefore, it typically applies to running a household.60 It includes administration or stewardship responsibilities – basically, the handling and dispensing of things needed to carry on a prescribed work. In this case, we are told that what is being administered is the fullness of times when all things will come under Christ’s authority. As we look ahead, we can see two separate occasions when this will come to be: the Millennium, and the New Heaven and Earth. During the Millennium, Christ will rule over all who are on the earth – namely, those who come through the time of the wrath of God and those who are born during the subsequent one thousand years. “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection [the rapture]: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years” (Revelation 20:6). We are told that Jesus is going to be shepherding all peoples with an iron staff (Revelation 12:5, literal); all peoples (ta ethnos) speaks of foreigners (Gentiles contrasted with Jews, unbelievers with believers, etc.), and it will be during the Millennium when Jesus will shepherd those who do not know Him as their Redeemer (foreigners).61 This will be a time when all things will be brought under the direct control of Christ (the glorified saints will reign with the Lord and will be His priests to those who are born during this time62), a time when the will of the Lord will be done on earth just as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10); yet, even during this time, sin will be present – there will be compliance but most will not accept Jesus as their Redeemer. However, the ultimate fulfillment will come in the New Heaven and Earth, when there will no longer be any foreigners (ta ethnos) – everything will be completed (the full meaning of fullness [pleroma]) and time will have been swallowed up by eternity. God created us within the framework of time, and so we have great difficulty grasping what eternity will be like. We’ve seen that the plan of God for mankind stretches from before the foundations of the world were laid, and now we see that it extends beyond the end of time itself – a future when all will be brought to completion within the design of God. This is a concept that is well beyond our comprehension, for we are inextricably tied to time. Here is foretold a gathering together, a time when all things will be brought together in Christ; there will be complete unity on that day. Today, only a small number find access in Christ to the Narrow Way that leads to life eternal (John 14:6); this will be an eternal day when all who are in Christ will be together with Him forever.
God will bring about this unity at the fullness of times, a future that is known only to Him, and, most importantly, He will do the gathering! The word translated as all things bears the neuter gender in Greek, and so it refers to everything, not just people or angels. Jesus said: “Everything that the Father is giving to Me, to Me it will come …” (John 6:37a, literal); He affirmed what Paul presents here: there is coming a time when everything (it also is neuter) will be Christ’s.63 The impact of sin fell upon all of creation, not just mankind, and this points forward to a time when all of creation will be restored in Christ. “Because the creature [creation] itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Romans 8:21-22).64 As John beholds the New Heaven and Earth, God assures him: “Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:5a).
Tony Campolo
We are given clarification as to what the all things really are: things which are in heaven, and which are on earth. There will be a unity of things (in one) in heaven and on earth, a coming together of all things under the headship of Christ. John wrote: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away …” (Revelation 21:1a); that which had been tainted by sin and sinners was forever removed. The first passed away as the Lord is seated upon His great white throne to render the verdict for the dead from all ages; everyone will be resurrected and stand before Him, and He will demonstrate the righteousness of His justice to all who are before Him (Revelation 20:11-15). A record of the works of each person will be consulted and a check will be made to see if their name is in the Book of Life. At this great gathering, only those who came to faith in the Lord during the Millennium will have their names in the Book of Life – everyone else will understand why they are condemned to the Lake of Fire for eternity (their record of works will condemn them). What is very apparent from this is that the Scriptures do not teach universalism, which has everyone eventually making it to the glories of heaven. Jesus explained: “And fear not them which kill [who are killing (apokteino)] the body, but are not able to kill [apokteino] the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy [apollumi, ruin or render of no value] both soul and body in hell [Gehenna, the Lake of Fire]” (Matthew 10:28).65 What Jesus clarified is that the eternal element of man (the soul) cannot be killed, but it can be ruined along with his body in eternal fire (this is the second death that is mentioned in Revelation 20:6, also identified as the Lake of Fire in Revelation 20:14). Those of us who are in Christ will not be touched by the eternal fire (Gehenna) because God has chosen us in Him, and we stand before Him in the righteousness of Christ! We have seen what it means to be in Christ, and what is apparent to all who will see it, is that only those who are in Christ will have a part in this ultimate gathering of all things in heaven and earth in Him!
Tony Campolo
Let’s take a moment to step back so that we can see the bigger picture that impacts us today. “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many …” (Hebrews 9:27-28a). This tells us that man dies only once and Christ died only once to bear the sins of humanity, but there is something more here that we sometimes miss. It is with certainty that men will die once and after this (a Greek demonstrative pronoun that refers specifically to death), judgment (krisis).66 When a judge renders his decision, a judgment has been made; in the same way, upon death, the Judge’s decision is made as it pertains to the soul of that person. We just mentioned that the soul is the eternal part of man; the body returns to the ground from which it came, and the breath (or spirit) returns to God Who gave it (Ecclesiastes 12:7). If the person is in Christ at the time of his death, then his soul will go to be with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8) – if not, then his soul will depart for Hades to await the day when body and soul will stand before God for the final time (Revelation 20:12-15). Physical death becomes the point of determination as to where that person will spend eternity; our response to the Lord Jesus in this life determines our eternal destination. Upon the death of a person, God makes the decision (krisis, judgment) as to where his soul will go (into His presence or into Hades); at the great white throne, the Lord provides every individual with evidence for His decision that was made at the time of his physical death, and then pronounces His eternal verdict. Yet there are those within the community of Evangelicals who do not accept the clarity of God’s Word on this matter – even those who are held in high regard by many: Robert Schuller, Billy Graham, C.S. Lewis, Chuck Colson, and Tony Campolo (to identify a few) have all promoted teachings that conform to some degree with the heresy of universalism. Even though the first four men noted are now dead, their influence lives on. We must be on guard lest we succumb to the false teaching of those who really should know better.
The essence of this verse is that all things will be brought together into perfect unity in Christ. This is not the Ecumenical unity in which those just mentioned have all been involved – a unity that comes by way of compromise and accommodation. Rather, this will be a unity that flows out of being in Christ – a place of holiness and righteousness. When God is prepared to conclude His dealings with mankind, when He is ready to gather all things into one unspoiled unity, He will do so in Christ. Christ will be the means, the reason, and the active ingredient in accomplishing all that God has planned at the end of the age. “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away … And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven … the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away … He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God … And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof” (Revelation 21:1-4, 7, 22-23). It is as we abide faithfully in Christ that we will be among the overcoming ones who will inherit all things; our obedience to the Lord’s commands is how we demonstrate our faithfulness to Him.
The last phrase of this verse, even in Him, is really a part of the next verse, so we will bear that in mind as we move on.
11. In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
Consider a literal translation of this verse: By Him, in Whom also we obtain an inheritance, foreordained according to the purpose of working all things according to the counsel of His will.67 The phrase by Him comes from the previous verse, but is very much a part of the thought being presented here (we must not be unduly influenced by the verse breaks). Included is a reference to the inheritance that is prepared for those who are the adopted children of God through the work of Christ; the assurance of this inheritance comes through being in Christ! The centrality of being in Christ must not be missed! Paul has underscored that it is in Christ that we become the recipients of several things:
1) in Christ we receive every spiritual blessing (v.3),
2) in Christ we are among those who have been chosen from before the foundation of the world (v.4),
3) in Christ we are predestined for adoption (v.5),
4) in the Beloved (Christ) we are accepted before God (v.6),
5) in Christ we have redemption (v.7),
6) in Christ all things will one day be gathered together in perfect unity (v.10), and, now,
7) in Christ we obtain an inheritance.
However, we must never lose sight of what it means to be in Christ and what it takes to remain in Him. I am the Vine, ye the branches; he who is abiding in Me, I in him, this one is bearing much fruit because apart from Me ye are able to be doing absolutely nothing (John 15:5, literal).68
We must not forget that this is an inheritance that is in Christ. Obtain an inheritance is one word in the Greek (eklhrothmen), it is in the passive voice (this is an inheritance that we receive), and the indicative mood, it is a statement of fact! We are assured that the inheritance is ours as long as we are remaining in Christ. An earthly inheritance is generally thought of as that which is obtained upon the death of another. In reality, the same can be said of this inheritance that is available in Christ, for it was through His death that our salvation was purchased, and so it is through appropriating the reality of what His death and resurrection accomplished, that we are adopted by God and obtain this inheritance. If He had not died, we would have no inheritance, for we would have no salvation. Do we realize the full benefit of this inheritance in this life? Clearly not, for we look forward to that coming day when He will gather all things together in perfect unity! John understood this when he said: “now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). It is because of this hope that we have in Christ, that we will purify our lives through obedience to His commands (1 John 3:3).
We are reminded that all of this is done in accordance with the eternal purposes of God. It was God’s eternal purpose that all that we are and have is in Christ; apart from Him we are lost, without hope and destined for eternal separation from Him in the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:15). This is why it is so vitally important that we continue to abide in Him; if we fail to abide in Him, then we will wither (spiritually), dry up, and be cast into the fire to be burned (John 15:6). However, if we remain in Christ, then our inheritance, the extent of which we cannot fathom in this life, has been determined in the mind of God before time began.
Here we catch a glimpse of the extent of God’s working – all things. Everything in the universe is subject to God’s orchestration; there is nothing of which God is not aware, and nothing that is outside of His control – all of this is being done in accordance with His will. God does not seek the counsel of man in order to determine His course of action; yet in the mystery and wisdom of God, He longs to respond to the petitions of His children (Psalm 145:18-19, Matthew 7:7-11). Even in this, we are called to ask in accordance with His will; our perspective of what is taking place around us is so limited that we must defer our requests to the far greater plan and wisdom of God, Who sees all things (1 John 5:14-15), and to Jesus Christ, Who is interceding for us (Romans 8:34).
12. That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.
This is a more difficult verse. Once again, let’s begin by considering a literal translation: for our being to the praise of His glory, who did hope before in Christ.69 As we ponder this, we can see that the translators of the KJV may have missed the full intent of this verse. In similar fashion to verse four, we have the word should inserted that makes it sound like the praise of his glory is something to which we are to aspire; however, the Greek does not include anything to justify this.
Another area of confusion has to do with the phrase first trusted in Christ. As we have considered Paul’s use of the pronoun we to this point, it has always been those to whom this letter is addressed and Paul (as its writer). However, as a more literal translation showed, this is not a reference to those who were the first to place their faith in the risen Christ; rather, it refers to those whose hope was in Christ from before. The hope of the OT saints had always been in the promise of a coming Messiah (the prophets wrote much of His coming), and this is somewhat of a parenthetical reflection that Paul makes as he ponders his days as a religious Jew. Even though his hope (and the hope of all of the OT saints) had been in the Coming One, the recognition of Jesus of Nazareth as the promised Messiah did not come easily for the Jews of that day (and Paul was no different). Paul was very aware of his active failure to accord Jesus His rightful place as the Messiah (1 Corinthians 15:9), even while his hope, as a religious Jew, was also in this very Person! Paul could now see that even the Jews whose hope was in the Promised One, brought praise to the glory of God – this One Who was unfolding the plan that had been devised in eternity past in the counsel of the Triune God.
Although the primary application of this reflective verse is on the OT saints and the Jews at the time of Jesus, we can also learn from it. We, like those who did hope before in Christ, must also be to the praise of His glory – our very existence is to bring glory to His name (Matthew 5:16). The whole thrust of our being is to declare the glory of God for all that He has accomplished on our behalf. If ever there should be those who live to bring glory to God, it should be those whose hope is in Christ – the faithful in Christ, along with the OT saints and the Jews who first embraced Jesus as the Messiah.
13. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
14. Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.
After drawing special attention to those who did hope before in Christ, it is clear that Paul is continuing to teach about Him (in whom). The translators have added a word (trusted) in order to provide flow of thought. However, consider a more literal translation where such a supplied word is not necessary: in Whom also ye who have heard the Word of Truth, the Good News of your salvation, in Whom also ye have believed: ye have been sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise.70 The One in Whom the OT saints placed their hope, this is the One Who is central to the Gospel (Good News) message of salvation – the Word of Truth that came to the Ephesians. Heard (from akouo) is more than simply an auditory activity, it also includes understanding what is heard.71 Romans 10:17 states: “so then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”; which is the exact situation with the Ephesians: they heard the Word of Truth (with understanding) and that led to their faith in the Lord (they believed). The Lord lamented the rebellious heart of Judah to Ezekiel, and declared that they “have ears to hear, and hear not” (Ezekiel 12:2); it’s not that everyone in Judah was deaf, but as a rebellious people, they had no ability to comprehend the message from the Lord – they only heard words (they had no desire to understand). Jesus, on numerous occasions, called out, “he that hath ears to hear, let him hear”; He faced the very same problem with the religious leaders of the Jews – they had ears, they heard, but could not (would not) understand Jesus’ message. The Good News that the Apostles took everywhere that they went, was the Word of Truth that had to be heard, but more than that, it needed to be understood. Contained within the Bible is the Message of Truth that is empowered by the Spirit of God – the only Truth by which eternal salvation is possible (John 14:6; Acts 4:12)!
By its very definition, truth is an exclusive term. If something is true, then variations of it cannot be entirely true, and something that is completely different is not true at all. Herein lies the fallacy of much of modern thinking; today’s philosophy would have us believe that truth is a very personal thing, a subjective reality that we cannot apply to anyone else. The first thing that becomes evident under this line of reasoning is that the Scriptures can no longer be considered to be the inerrant Word of God – God, Who is objective, omnipotent, and a holy Being with Whom we all have to do. God can no longer be a God with thoughts that are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:9), but rather, He has become one of us, or, He is merely a product of our imaginations. This is the foundation of sand upon which the higher critics of the 18th and 19th centuries built their new understanding of the Bible. In their liberated thinking, they could handle the Bible like any other piece of ancient literature, and thereby they dismissed God’s inspiration and promised preservation of His Word (2 Timothy 3:16; Matthew 24:35).
Tony Campolo
Let’s take a moment to step back so that we can see the bigger picture that impacts us today. “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many …” (Hebrews 9:27-28a). This tells us that man dies only once and Christ died only once to bear the sins of humanity, but there is something more here that we sometimes miss. It is with certainty that men will die once and after this (a Greek demonstrative pronoun that refers specifically to death), judgment (krisis).66 When a judge renders his decision, a judgment has been made; in the same way, upon death, the Judge’s decision is made as it pertains to the soul of that person. We just mentioned that the soul is the eternal part of man; the body returns to the ground from which it came, and the breath (or spirit) returns to God Who gave it (Ecclesiastes 12:7). If the person is in Christ at the time of his death, then his soul will go to be with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8) – if not, then his soul will depart for Hades to await the day when body and soul will stand before God for the final time (Revelation 20:12-15). Physical death becomes the point of determination as to where that person will spend eternity; our response to the Lord Jesus in this life determines our eternal destination. Upon the death of a person, God makes the decision (krisis, judgment) as to where his soul will go (into His presence or into Hades); at the great white throne, the Lord provides every individual with evidence for His decision that was made at the time of his physical death, and then pronounces His eternal verdict. Yet there are those within the community of Evangelicals who do not accept the clarity of God’s Word on this matter – even those who are held in high regard by many: Robert Schuller, Billy Graham, C.S. Lewis, Chuck Colson, and Tony Campolo (to identify a few) have all promoted teachings that conform to some degree with the heresy of universalism. Even though the first four men noted are now dead, their influence lives on. We must be on guard lest we succumb to the false teaching of those who really should know better.
The essence of this verse is that all things will be brought together into perfect unity in Christ. This is not the Ecumenical unity in which those just mentioned have all been involved – a unity that comes by way of compromise and accommodation. Rather, this will be a unity that flows out of being in Christ – a place of holiness and righteousness. When God is prepared to conclude His dealings with mankind, when He is ready to gather all things into one unspoiled unity, He will do so in Christ. Christ will be the means, the reason, and the active ingredient in accomplishing all that God has planned at the end of the age. “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away … And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven … the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away … He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God … And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof” (Revelation 21:1-4, 7, 22-23). It is as we abide faithfully in Christ that we will be among the overcoming ones who will inherit all things; our obedience to the Lord’s commands is how we demonstrate our faithfulness to Him.
The last phrase of this verse, even in Him, is really a part of the next verse, so we will bear that in mind as we move on.
11. In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
Consider a literal translation of this verse: By Him, in Whom also we obtain an inheritance, foreordained according to the purpose of working all things according to the counsel of His will.67 The phrase by Him comes from the previous verse, but is very much a part of the thought being presented here (we must not be unduly influenced by the verse breaks). Included is a reference to the inheritance that is prepared for those who are the adopted children of God through the work of Christ; the assurance of this inheritance comes through being in Christ! The centrality of being in Christ must not be missed! Paul has underscored that it is in Christ that we become the recipients of several things:
1) in Christ we receive every spiritual blessing (v.3),
2) in Christ we are among those who have been chosen from before the foundation of the world (v.4),
3) in Christ we are predestined for adoption (v.5),
4) in the Beloved (Christ) we are accepted before God (v.6),
5) in Christ we have redemption (v.7),
6) in Christ all things will one day be gathered together in perfect unity (v.10), and, now,
7) in Christ we obtain an inheritance.
However, we must never lose sight of what it means to be in Christ and what it takes to remain in Him. I am the Vine, ye the branches; he who is abiding in Me, I in him, this one is bearing much fruit because apart from Me ye are able to be doing absolutely nothing (John 15:5, literal).68
We must not forget that this is an inheritance that is in Christ. Obtain an inheritance is one word in the Greek (eklhrothmen), it is in the passive voice (this is an inheritance that we receive), and the indicative mood, it is a statement of fact! We are assured that the inheritance is ours as long as we are remaining in Christ. An earthly inheritance is generally thought of as that which is obtained upon the death of another. In reality, the same can be said of this inheritance that is available in Christ, for it was through His death that our salvation was purchased, and so it is through appropriating the reality of what His death and resurrection accomplished, that we are adopted by God and obtain this inheritance. If He had not died, we would have no inheritance, for we would have no salvation. Do we realize the full benefit of this inheritance in this life? Clearly not, for we look forward to that coming day when He will gather all things together in perfect unity! John understood this when he said: “now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). It is because of this hope that we have in Christ, that we will purify our lives through obedience to His commands (1 John 3:3).
We are reminded that all of this is done in accordance with the eternal purposes of God. It was God’s eternal purpose that all that we are and have is in Christ; apart from Him we are lost, without hope and destined for eternal separation from Him in the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:15). This is why it is so vitally important that we continue to abide in Him; if we fail to abide in Him, then we will wither (spiritually), dry up, and be cast into the fire to be burned (John 15:6). However, if we remain in Christ, then our inheritance, the extent of which we cannot fathom in this life, has been determined in the mind of God before time began.
Here we catch a glimpse of the extent of God’s working – all things. Everything in the universe is subject to God’s orchestration; there is nothing of which God is not aware, and nothing that is outside of His control – all of this is being done in accordance with His will. God does not seek the counsel of man in order to determine His course of action; yet in the mystery and wisdom of God, He longs to respond to the petitions of His children (Psalm 145:18-19, Matthew 7:7-11). Even in this, we are called to ask in accordance with His will; our perspective of what is taking place around us is so limited that we must defer our requests to the far greater plan and wisdom of God, Who sees all things (1 John 5:14-15), and to Jesus Christ, Who is interceding for us (Romans 8:34).
12. That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.
This is a more difficult verse. Once again, let’s begin by considering a literal translation: for our being to the praise of His glory, who did hope before in Christ.69 As we ponder this, we can see that the translators of the KJV may have missed the full intent of this verse. In similar fashion to verse four, we have the word should inserted that makes it sound like the praise of his glory is something to which we are to aspire; however, the Greek does not include anything to justify this.
Another area of confusion has to do with the phrase first trusted in Christ. As we have considered Paul’s use of the pronoun we to this point, it has always been those to whom this letter is addressed and Paul (as its writer). However, as a more literal translation showed, this is not a reference to those who were the first to place their faith in the risen Christ; rather, it refers to those whose hope was in Christ from before. The hope of the OT saints had always been in the promise of a coming Messiah (the prophets wrote much of His coming), and this is somewhat of a parenthetical reflection that Paul makes as he ponders his days as a religious Jew. Even though his hope (and the hope of all of the OT saints) had been in the Coming One, the recognition of Jesus of Nazareth as the promised Messiah did not come easily for the Jews of that day (and Paul was no different). Paul was very aware of his active failure to accord Jesus His rightful place as the Messiah (1 Corinthians 15:9), even while his hope, as a religious Jew, was also in this very Person! Paul could now see that even the Jews whose hope was in the Promised One, brought praise to the glory of God – this One Who was unfolding the plan that had been devised in eternity past in the counsel of the Triune God.
Although the primary application of this reflective verse is on the OT saints and the Jews at the time of Jesus, we can also learn from it. We, like those who did hope before in Christ, must also be to the praise of His glory – our very existence is to bring glory to His name (Matthew 5:16). The whole thrust of our being is to declare the glory of God for all that He has accomplished on our behalf. If ever there should be those who live to bring glory to God, it should be those whose hope is in Christ – the faithful in Christ, along with the OT saints and the Jews who first embraced Jesus as the Messiah.
13. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
14. Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.
After drawing special attention to those who did hope before in Christ, it is clear that Paul is continuing to teach about Him (in whom). The translators have added a word (trusted) in order to provide flow of thought. However, consider a more literal translation where such a supplied word is not necessary: in Whom also ye who have heard the Word of Truth, the Good News of your salvation, in Whom also ye have believed: ye have been sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise.70 The One in Whom the OT saints placed their hope, this is the One Who is central to the Gospel (Good News) message of salvation – the Word of Truth that came to the Ephesians. Heard (from akouo) is more than simply an auditory activity, it also includes understanding what is heard.71 Romans 10:17 states: “so then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”; which is the exact situation with the Ephesians: they heard the Word of Truth (with understanding) and that led to their faith in the Lord (they believed). The Lord lamented the rebellious heart of Judah to Ezekiel, and declared that they “have ears to hear, and hear not” (Ezekiel 12:2); it’s not that everyone in Judah was deaf, but as a rebellious people, they had no ability to comprehend the message from the Lord – they only heard words (they had no desire to understand). Jesus, on numerous occasions, called out, “he that hath ears to hear, let him hear”; He faced the very same problem with the religious leaders of the Jews – they had ears, they heard, but could not (would not) understand Jesus’ message. The Good News that the Apostles took everywhere that they went, was the Word of Truth that had to be heard, but more than that, it needed to be understood. Contained within the Bible is the Message of Truth that is empowered by the Spirit of God – the only Truth by which eternal salvation is possible (John 14:6; Acts 4:12)!
By its very definition, truth is an exclusive term. If something is true, then variations of it cannot be entirely true, and something that is completely different is not true at all. Herein lies the fallacy of much of modern thinking; today’s philosophy would have us believe that truth is a very personal thing, a subjective reality that we cannot apply to anyone else. The first thing that becomes evident under this line of reasoning is that the Scriptures can no longer be considered to be the inerrant Word of God – God, Who is objective, omnipotent, and a holy Being with Whom we all have to do. God can no longer be a God with thoughts that are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:9), but rather, He has become one of us, or, He is merely a product of our imaginations. This is the foundation of sand upon which the higher critics of the 18th and 19th centuries built their new understanding of the Bible. In their liberated thinking, they could handle the Bible like any other piece of ancient literature, and thereby they dismissed God’s inspiration and promised preservation of His Word (2 Timothy 3:16; Matthew 24:35).
Unfortunately, the edge of this philosophy has penetrated the thinking of Christians today so that the truth of the Word of God is no longer declared with power and conviction; there are various views of many doctrines, and the feeling is that we must be tolerant of them all. The foundation for this departure is the infusion of rationalism. Man is capable of rationalizing almost anything in an effort to ensure his own comfort of conscience. Hence, the Evangelical Free Church (EFC), in their founding days, could state: “if Scripture alone is the rule, and Scripture is open to various interpretations, and believers are free in conscience to interpret it as they feel ‘led’ by the Holy Spirit, it follows that they may be led to different views.”72 The flow of logic that the EFC used (rationalism) led them to the conclusion that the Holy Spirit is responsible for the doctrinal confusion that exists today. Can God have different meanings for the same Scripture? Did He speak ambiguously? Paul’s admonition to Timothy would seem to indicate otherwise, for he was to study to show himself approved unto God, “rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15); from this we can conclude that an incorrect dividing, or interpretation, of the Word of God would result in God’s disapproval. In our own human frailty, we may not all arrive at the same understanding of the Scriptures concerning a given matter, but that is very different from laying the blame for differing interpretations at the feet of the Holy Spirit – God Himself!
In whom – once again, the means for what follows is in Christ. Here we have something else that is accomplished through faith in Christ: we have then been sealed with the Holy Spirit as promised; “… when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth …” (John 16:13). Notwithstanding the EFC’s perception of the Spirit’s role in bringing doctrinal confusion, Jesus said that the Spirit would “guide [us] into all truth”; this involves a process of leading and guiding us into rightly dividing the word of truth – not a one-time revelation, but a life-long process of instruction. We have been sealed by the Holy Spirit – the presence of the Spirit within is a sign that we are identified as belonging to Him;73 therefore, the presence of the Spirit of God in our lives should be evident (Matthew 5:16). The ancient seal was used to confirm the authenticity of an item, and to affirm its approval under the authority of the owner of the seal; even so, we have been given the Holy Spirit by God to affirm that we are His. “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ [the Seal of God], he is none of his [this one (a demonstrative pronoun in the Greek) is not His]” (Romans 8:9).74
The next question is this: is it possible for the Seal to be removed? Is our eternal destiny eternally secured, as most Evangelicals and Calvinists claim? This is an important matter, so let’s take a moment to consider it within the light of several Scriptures.
In Romans 11:13-22 we read: “For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office: If by any means I may provoke to emulation [parazeloo – to arouse to imitation] them which are my flesh, and might save some of them. For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? For if the firstfruit [the first offering to God] be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; Boast not against [do not feel superior to] the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in. Well; because of unbelief [apistia – no belief] they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue [this is the condition upon which the expression of God’s goodness rests] in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.”75 We, who have placed our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, have been grafted into the Root (Christ) by faith; this passage clearly teaches that if we set this saving faith aside (which is unbelief), then we also face the fate of being cut off. The admonition given here is that we must continue – we must steadfastly remain in Christ.
Hebrews 3:12-14 – “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing [becoming apostate] from the living God [which requires being in fellowship with Him first]. But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened [to become stubborn; the purpose of exhortation is so that no one will become stubborn (a purpose clause)76] through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if [on the condition that] we hold [includes the possibility of not holding] the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end ….”77 This is addressed to brethren, those who were earlier called holy brethren (Hebrews 3:1), and stands as a warning to us that we must guard our hearts; “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
John 15:1-2 – “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” Jesus goes on to say: “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned [literally, it is burning78]” (John 15:6). The final state of a broken-off branch is to be burned; this is a branch that has been in Me but has been removed because it produced no fruit in keeping with the Vine. The final state of those who are not in Christ is the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:15).
Matthew 10:22 (Mark 13:13) – “And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved [will be saved (future tense)].” Endureth (hupomeno), in the Greek, is an emphasized form of the word abide, as it is translated in Jesus’ words: “Abide [meno] in me” (John 15:4). Hupomeno includes the idea of remaining faithful through difficult circumstances.79
Matthew 24:11-13 – “And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure [hupomeno] unto the end, the same shall be saved.” This is a reiteration of the thrust of Matthew 10:22. The same is a demonstrative pronoun: this is the one (referring to the one who is faithfully enduring through trials) who will be saved – again, future tense and passive voice (God does the saving).80
Hebrews 3:6 – “But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence [the condition] and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” We are of Christ’s house IF we hold fast to the hope that we have in Him.
Matthew 13:19-23 – “When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side. But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth [with understanding] the word, and anon [euthos; immediately] with joy receiveth it [an acceptance of the Word (believe); cp. Luke 8:13]; Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by [euthos; immediately] he is offended [falls away]. He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth [with understanding] the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke [to choke utterly] the word, and he becometh unfruitful (see John 15:1-2). But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”81 Too often, the fruit is thought to be the salvation of souls, but consider this carefully. When a seed of wheat is sown, it grows into a plant; if all that it produced was a proliferation of greenery, we would be very disappointed – rather, it produces seed. The seed, in the parable, is the Word of God, and so when the fruit is evident, it will reflect the Word that has taken root within us. In other words, it will be the fruit of the Spirit that will be evident in our lives (Galatians 5:22-23). If a branch of an apple tree simply produced more branches, we would remove it; our expectation is that the branch will produce apples in keeping with the tree to which it is inextricably linked. In like manner, we are to produce fruit in keeping with the Spirit of God abiding in us, and Christ into Whom we have been grafted by faith; if we do not, then we are removed and are destined to be burned (John 15:5-6).
Hebrews 10:23-29 – “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith [elpis – hope] without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth [full knowledge of the Truth by means of faith in Christ], there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for [only a frightful expectation] of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer [greater] punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot [despised] the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified [made holy], an unholy thing, and hath done despite [insult] unto the Spirit of grace?”82 What is undeniable is that the one who is now sinning willfully was truly born again: he received the full knowledge of the truth (a saving knowledge of Jesus), and he was sanctified (made holy) by the blood of Christ.83 Within the Evangelical community, it is commonly held that those who fall away, or become apostate, never truly believed – they only appeared to be Christians; the Scriptures do not support this comfortable error.
Those who hold to an eternal security for salvation, without the possibility of ever being lost, not only ignore the Scriptures that teach against this, but they endeavor to find support for it from God’s Word. For example, in John 10:27-29 Jesus says: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.” They appeal to the never perish and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand as the basis for being “once saved, always saved.” Never, in the Greek, is formed by two negatives ou and me; when these are used together with a subjunctive verb (as they are here), rather than presenting a possibility (as would be normal for a subjunctive verb) they form a very strong negative.84 Therefore, this could be translated as will absolutely not perish; the promoters of eternal security stop there, but we need to note to whom this is being addressed. The one who will never perish is the one who is hearing the Shepherd’s voice and is following Him (both verbs are in the present tense, which means that both are a continuous action); it is to these attentive and obedient ones that Jesus says that He is giving eternal life and they will never perish. The promise that no one will be able to pluck His sheep out of the hand of the Father is a wonderful assurance that we are secure from external attacks. No external force is able to snatch us out of His hand, but that does not exclude the possibility of our hearts becoming hardened through unbelief so that we turn our backs on the Lord (Hebrews 3:12-14). “He that believeth [is believing, present tense*] on the Son hath [is having*] everlasting life: and he that believeth not [is disobeying*] the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth [is abiding*] on him” (John 3:36).85 God has provided us with wonderful protection, but we still carry about within us a heart that is deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9). There is nothing in Scripture to support eternal security, if one takes the time and has the will to look carefully.
The Holy Spirit is the down payment, or deposit, (earnest – arrabon) toward the day of our complete deliverance from sin, at which time we will enter into the fullness of our inheritance in Christ.86 He is the present assurance that God is committed to complete what He has declared concerning our future with Him. However, a down payment, or deposit, does not assure the completion of a transaction; it only confirms the intention to complete the agreement. It is God Who has given us this assurance: “…God; Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest [arrabon] of the Spirit in our hearts” (2 Corinthians 1:21-22). God has placed His Spirit within us to reassure us that He is able to accomplish what He has declared. As much as it lies within God, our salvation will be completed one day; He has promised our protection from external foes (Romans 8:38-39); we must seek His enablement to guard against unbelief entering our hearts (Hebrews 3:12-14).
Until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. A literal translation of this reads: to the redemption of the possession, to the praise of His glory.87 Here we have two specific purposes for the Spirit of God as God’s Deposit in us: 1) to assure us of God’s desire for our complete deliverance, and 2) to bring praise to the glory of God. We (who are in Christ) have been purchased out of sin – He bought us, we are His slaves (doulos) and He is our Master! “Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of [ye have become enslaved to] righteousness” (Romans 6:18). However, we still live in a fallen world and strive against our fallen natures (Romans 7:21-23); the fact that there is a battle raging is assurance that the Spirit of God is present – without Him there would be no struggle. There will come a day when God will deliver us from this conflict and we will be with Him forever; the Spirit has been given to us to confirm the potential for that future reality (since the Scriptures do not teach eternal security, it is necessary to say potential). The Spirit has also been given to bring praise to God; all is to the praise of the glory of God. He alone has made this possible; we are recipients of God’s merciful salvation – it is all of Him and nothing from us. It is our sin that was the reason that He sent the Lord Jesus Christ to die for us; as such, it is certain that we could have no part in our own redemption. As much as this clashes with modern spirituality, so be it!
We’ve already noted that Jesus said that the Spirit would guide us into all truth (John 16:13); John 17:17 tells us that God’s Word is truth, therefore we should not expect special revelation from the Holy Spirit, and we should be suspicious of those who say that they have received such. This Deposit for our future salvation is our Guide into the truth of God’s Word; He is the alongside One, leading us in an ever-deepening understanding of Scripture. Coupled with this understanding must come obedience to the truth. “And this is his [God’s] commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us” (1 John 3:23-24). The abiding Spirit of God will let us know if we walk in obedience to God, or if we err – unless we give way to an evil heart of unbelief (Hebrews 3:12), at which time we have departed from God and His Spirit is gone.
15. Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,
16. Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;
What follows now is specifically related to what has just been outlined; the wherefore is literally because of this.88 Paul is very careful to build upon what he has just explained; there is a developing progression in his epistle. Paul makes specific reference to the Ephesian Christians, for he had evidently heard of how they were living out their faith after he had been with them (Acts 20:17, 31). Their faith in Jesus was such that it was evident to those about them. How they lived must have obviously demonstrated their trust in the Lord.
And love unto all the saints is probably one of the ways that the faith of the Ephesians was so evident in their daily living – they demonstrated a love for all of the saints, or holy ones. Today we hear much about love; couched within the modern concept of love is the idea of acceptance. At one time, we called for tolerance of those who advocated a different faith from that declared in Scripture; we would permit them to hold their beliefs no matter how strange. Today, however, this is no longer enough. Now we are expected to accept all beliefs as being equally tenable; there is no longer a concept of right and wrong, and all beliefs that are held as truth are to be given equal credence. In the name of “love,” truth has become subjective; it is whatever anyone determines it to be – we are not to try to dissuade anyone from their error, for it is advocated that there is no real error, only differing shades of truth. The thin edge of this wedge has found its place within Evangelicalism as well; there has been a move toward positivism, along with a comparable move away from anything that could even remotely appear to be negative or judgmental. In essence, we are to tolerate error within those who profess to be Christians lest we demonstrate anything other than this pathetic form of love, which finds no voice in Scripture. Out of this mindset flows the movement toward Ecumenical unity with its unbalanced emphasis on all that is positive, its acceptance of good in the midst of what is clearly evil, and its siren call for all flavors of faith to come together while turning a blind eye to error. This mindset contravenes the Scriptures that call us to be those who are “rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).
In whom – once again, the means for what follows is in Christ. Here we have something else that is accomplished through faith in Christ: we have then been sealed with the Holy Spirit as promised; “… when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth …” (John 16:13). Notwithstanding the EFC’s perception of the Spirit’s role in bringing doctrinal confusion, Jesus said that the Spirit would “guide [us] into all truth”; this involves a process of leading and guiding us into rightly dividing the word of truth – not a one-time revelation, but a life-long process of instruction. We have been sealed by the Holy Spirit – the presence of the Spirit within is a sign that we are identified as belonging to Him;73 therefore, the presence of the Spirit of God in our lives should be evident (Matthew 5:16). The ancient seal was used to confirm the authenticity of an item, and to affirm its approval under the authority of the owner of the seal; even so, we have been given the Holy Spirit by God to affirm that we are His. “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ [the Seal of God], he is none of his [this one (a demonstrative pronoun in the Greek) is not His]” (Romans 8:9).74
The next question is this: is it possible for the Seal to be removed? Is our eternal destiny eternally secured, as most Evangelicals and Calvinists claim? This is an important matter, so let’s take a moment to consider it within the light of several Scriptures.
In Romans 11:13-22 we read: “For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office: If by any means I may provoke to emulation [parazeloo – to arouse to imitation] them which are my flesh, and might save some of them. For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? For if the firstfruit [the first offering to God] be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; Boast not against [do not feel superior to] the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in. Well; because of unbelief [apistia – no belief] they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue [this is the condition upon which the expression of God’s goodness rests] in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.”75 We, who have placed our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, have been grafted into the Root (Christ) by faith; this passage clearly teaches that if we set this saving faith aside (which is unbelief), then we also face the fate of being cut off. The admonition given here is that we must continue – we must steadfastly remain in Christ.
Hebrews 3:12-14 – “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing [becoming apostate] from the living God [which requires being in fellowship with Him first]. But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened [to become stubborn; the purpose of exhortation is so that no one will become stubborn (a purpose clause)76] through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if [on the condition that] we hold [includes the possibility of not holding] the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end ….”77 This is addressed to brethren, those who were earlier called holy brethren (Hebrews 3:1), and stands as a warning to us that we must guard our hearts; “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
John 15:1-2 – “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” Jesus goes on to say: “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned [literally, it is burning78]” (John 15:6). The final state of a broken-off branch is to be burned; this is a branch that has been in Me but has been removed because it produced no fruit in keeping with the Vine. The final state of those who are not in Christ is the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:15).
Matthew 10:22 (Mark 13:13) – “And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved [will be saved (future tense)].” Endureth (hupomeno), in the Greek, is an emphasized form of the word abide, as it is translated in Jesus’ words: “Abide [meno] in me” (John 15:4). Hupomeno includes the idea of remaining faithful through difficult circumstances.79
Matthew 24:11-13 – “And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure [hupomeno] unto the end, the same shall be saved.” This is a reiteration of the thrust of Matthew 10:22. The same is a demonstrative pronoun: this is the one (referring to the one who is faithfully enduring through trials) who will be saved – again, future tense and passive voice (God does the saving).80
Hebrews 3:6 – “But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence [the condition] and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” We are of Christ’s house IF we hold fast to the hope that we have in Him.
Matthew 13:19-23 – “When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side. But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth [with understanding] the word, and anon [euthos; immediately] with joy receiveth it [an acceptance of the Word (believe); cp. Luke 8:13]; Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by [euthos; immediately] he is offended [falls away]. He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth [with understanding] the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke [to choke utterly] the word, and he becometh unfruitful (see John 15:1-2). But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”81 Too often, the fruit is thought to be the salvation of souls, but consider this carefully. When a seed of wheat is sown, it grows into a plant; if all that it produced was a proliferation of greenery, we would be very disappointed – rather, it produces seed. The seed, in the parable, is the Word of God, and so when the fruit is evident, it will reflect the Word that has taken root within us. In other words, it will be the fruit of the Spirit that will be evident in our lives (Galatians 5:22-23). If a branch of an apple tree simply produced more branches, we would remove it; our expectation is that the branch will produce apples in keeping with the tree to which it is inextricably linked. In like manner, we are to produce fruit in keeping with the Spirit of God abiding in us, and Christ into Whom we have been grafted by faith; if we do not, then we are removed and are destined to be burned (John 15:5-6).
Hebrews 10:23-29 – “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith [elpis – hope] without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth [full knowledge of the Truth by means of faith in Christ], there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for [only a frightful expectation] of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer [greater] punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot [despised] the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified [made holy], an unholy thing, and hath done despite [insult] unto the Spirit of grace?”82 What is undeniable is that the one who is now sinning willfully was truly born again: he received the full knowledge of the truth (a saving knowledge of Jesus), and he was sanctified (made holy) by the blood of Christ.83 Within the Evangelical community, it is commonly held that those who fall away, or become apostate, never truly believed – they only appeared to be Christians; the Scriptures do not support this comfortable error.
Those who hold to an eternal security for salvation, without the possibility of ever being lost, not only ignore the Scriptures that teach against this, but they endeavor to find support for it from God’s Word. For example, in John 10:27-29 Jesus says: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.” They appeal to the never perish and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand as the basis for being “once saved, always saved.” Never, in the Greek, is formed by two negatives ou and me; when these are used together with a subjunctive verb (as they are here), rather than presenting a possibility (as would be normal for a subjunctive verb) they form a very strong negative.84 Therefore, this could be translated as will absolutely not perish; the promoters of eternal security stop there, but we need to note to whom this is being addressed. The one who will never perish is the one who is hearing the Shepherd’s voice and is following Him (both verbs are in the present tense, which means that both are a continuous action); it is to these attentive and obedient ones that Jesus says that He is giving eternal life and they will never perish. The promise that no one will be able to pluck His sheep out of the hand of the Father is a wonderful assurance that we are secure from external attacks. No external force is able to snatch us out of His hand, but that does not exclude the possibility of our hearts becoming hardened through unbelief so that we turn our backs on the Lord (Hebrews 3:12-14). “He that believeth [is believing, present tense*] on the Son hath [is having*] everlasting life: and he that believeth not [is disobeying*] the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth [is abiding*] on him” (John 3:36).85 God has provided us with wonderful protection, but we still carry about within us a heart that is deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9). There is nothing in Scripture to support eternal security, if one takes the time and has the will to look carefully.
The Holy Spirit is the down payment, or deposit, (earnest – arrabon) toward the day of our complete deliverance from sin, at which time we will enter into the fullness of our inheritance in Christ.86 He is the present assurance that God is committed to complete what He has declared concerning our future with Him. However, a down payment, or deposit, does not assure the completion of a transaction; it only confirms the intention to complete the agreement. It is God Who has given us this assurance: “…God; Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest [arrabon] of the Spirit in our hearts” (2 Corinthians 1:21-22). God has placed His Spirit within us to reassure us that He is able to accomplish what He has declared. As much as it lies within God, our salvation will be completed one day; He has promised our protection from external foes (Romans 8:38-39); we must seek His enablement to guard against unbelief entering our hearts (Hebrews 3:12-14).
Until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. A literal translation of this reads: to the redemption of the possession, to the praise of His glory.87 Here we have two specific purposes for the Spirit of God as God’s Deposit in us: 1) to assure us of God’s desire for our complete deliverance, and 2) to bring praise to the glory of God. We (who are in Christ) have been purchased out of sin – He bought us, we are His slaves (doulos) and He is our Master! “Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of [ye have become enslaved to] righteousness” (Romans 6:18). However, we still live in a fallen world and strive against our fallen natures (Romans 7:21-23); the fact that there is a battle raging is assurance that the Spirit of God is present – without Him there would be no struggle. There will come a day when God will deliver us from this conflict and we will be with Him forever; the Spirit has been given to us to confirm the potential for that future reality (since the Scriptures do not teach eternal security, it is necessary to say potential). The Spirit has also been given to bring praise to God; all is to the praise of the glory of God. He alone has made this possible; we are recipients of God’s merciful salvation – it is all of Him and nothing from us. It is our sin that was the reason that He sent the Lord Jesus Christ to die for us; as such, it is certain that we could have no part in our own redemption. As much as this clashes with modern spirituality, so be it!
We’ve already noted that Jesus said that the Spirit would guide us into all truth (John 16:13); John 17:17 tells us that God’s Word is truth, therefore we should not expect special revelation from the Holy Spirit, and we should be suspicious of those who say that they have received such. This Deposit for our future salvation is our Guide into the truth of God’s Word; He is the alongside One, leading us in an ever-deepening understanding of Scripture. Coupled with this understanding must come obedience to the truth. “And this is his [God’s] commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us” (1 John 3:23-24). The abiding Spirit of God will let us know if we walk in obedience to God, or if we err – unless we give way to an evil heart of unbelief (Hebrews 3:12), at which time we have departed from God and His Spirit is gone.
15. Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,
16. Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;
What follows now is specifically related to what has just been outlined; the wherefore is literally because of this.88 Paul is very careful to build upon what he has just explained; there is a developing progression in his epistle. Paul makes specific reference to the Ephesian Christians, for he had evidently heard of how they were living out their faith after he had been with them (Acts 20:17, 31). Their faith in Jesus was such that it was evident to those about them. How they lived must have obviously demonstrated their trust in the Lord.
And love unto all the saints is probably one of the ways that the faith of the Ephesians was so evident in their daily living – they demonstrated a love for all of the saints, or holy ones. Today we hear much about love; couched within the modern concept of love is the idea of acceptance. At one time, we called for tolerance of those who advocated a different faith from that declared in Scripture; we would permit them to hold their beliefs no matter how strange. Today, however, this is no longer enough. Now we are expected to accept all beliefs as being equally tenable; there is no longer a concept of right and wrong, and all beliefs that are held as truth are to be given equal credence. In the name of “love,” truth has become subjective; it is whatever anyone determines it to be – we are not to try to dissuade anyone from their error, for it is advocated that there is no real error, only differing shades of truth. The thin edge of this wedge has found its place within Evangelicalism as well; there has been a move toward positivism, along with a comparable move away from anything that could even remotely appear to be negative or judgmental. In essence, we are to tolerate error within those who profess to be Christians lest we demonstrate anything other than this pathetic form of love, which finds no voice in Scripture. Out of this mindset flows the movement toward Ecumenical unity with its unbalanced emphasis on all that is positive, its acceptance of good in the midst of what is clearly evil, and its siren call for all flavors of faith to come together while turning a blind eye to error. This mindset contravenes the Scriptures that call us to be those who are “rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).
A classic example of this today is Rick Warren. He “defines sin as acts of people ‘sabotaging their own success’”.89 He goes on to claim: “God won’t ask about your religious background or doctrinal views.”90 This is a fundamental principle for Rick Warren, for he has deliberately set sound doctrine aside for a philosophy of life and ministry that does not adhere to the Word of God. Richard Bennett quotes Warren: “‘The best use of your life is to serve God out of your shape. To do this you must discover your shape, learn to accept and enjoy it, and then develop it to its fullest potential’ (p. 249 [of The Purpose Driven Life]). This equates exactly with the Hinduism [sic] in its teaching, ‘By understanding your true Self, by coming to know one’s own undying soul, one then arrives at the knowledge of Brahman itself ….’”91 By failing to hold to sound doctrine, Warren, and everyone who swallows his words without evaluating them in the light of Scripture, has wandered into territory that is under the guidance of Satan himself.
From those who advocate such things, you will never hear anything about holy living! In reality, then, they are not concerned about loving those who are living holy lives before God (i.e., a “love unto all saints”), but rather embracing all of those who merely profess to know God (this profession becomes the standard for acceptance, even to the point where they can hold their own definition of God). Yet, despite their best efforts to apply guilt to those who seek to live Biblically, those who advocate an Ecumenical unity as the primary focus for Christians (which, in their minds, is synonymous with love), do so to their own peril, for they stand in opposition to the clear teaching of Scripture. God has called us to separate from that which is not of Him – “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not [do not be holding to] the unclean thing; and I [in turn] will receive you ...” (2 Corinthians 6:17);92 what could be more spiritually unclean than a perversion of the true Gospel (Galatians 1:6-9)? The Ephesians were known for their love of those who were abiding in Christ, who were obeying His commandments with joy, and who were demonstrating the presence of the Seal of God in their lives – i.e., the saints! There is no room for accepting those who profess Christ yet cling to an aberration of the Gospel. This was emphasized to the Israelites (and, hence, given as our example): “What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it” (Deuteronomy 12:32) – there must not be a rounding of the sharp corners of the truth! It is little wonder that Timothy was instructed so carefully to hold to the teachings that had been given to him by Paul (1 Timothy 1:3; 4:13, 16; 2 Timothy 1:13; 3:14-15; 4:2-4).
Paul is overjoyed at what he has heard about the Ephesians, and he does not stop giving thanks for them; he would be like a new mom or dad who cannot stop glowing about their new baby. Here was a group of believers who were living out their faith in the Lord Jesus – a cause for Paul to be thankful.
Despite the joy and thankfulness that Paul had for the Ephesian saints, they were still in his prayers – making mention of you in my prayers. What comes to mind is Paul’s comment to the Corinthians: “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). Even though the Ephesians received Paul’s commendation for how they were living, he did not stop praying for them. How often I cease to pray (or don’t even begin to pray) for someone who has their act together, so to speak, only to discover later that their lives were falling apart. Perhaps, in a real sense, those who seem to be doing so well may need additional prayer, for they may be the specific targets of the enemy of our souls. Lord, help us to be more faithful in this area.
17. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
Paul is careful to tell the Ephesians Whom he is petitioning. He is calling on the God of our Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Father of glory. This brings together the tremendous omnipotence of God (Who raised Jesus to life) and God, our Father, Who desires to have a relationship with His created, sinful creatures.
From those who advocate such things, you will never hear anything about holy living! In reality, then, they are not concerned about loving those who are living holy lives before God (i.e., a “love unto all saints”), but rather embracing all of those who merely profess to know God (this profession becomes the standard for acceptance, even to the point where they can hold their own definition of God). Yet, despite their best efforts to apply guilt to those who seek to live Biblically, those who advocate an Ecumenical unity as the primary focus for Christians (which, in their minds, is synonymous with love), do so to their own peril, for they stand in opposition to the clear teaching of Scripture. God has called us to separate from that which is not of Him – “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not [do not be holding to] the unclean thing; and I [in turn] will receive you ...” (2 Corinthians 6:17);92 what could be more spiritually unclean than a perversion of the true Gospel (Galatians 1:6-9)? The Ephesians were known for their love of those who were abiding in Christ, who were obeying His commandments with joy, and who were demonstrating the presence of the Seal of God in their lives – i.e., the saints! There is no room for accepting those who profess Christ yet cling to an aberration of the Gospel. This was emphasized to the Israelites (and, hence, given as our example): “What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it” (Deuteronomy 12:32) – there must not be a rounding of the sharp corners of the truth! It is little wonder that Timothy was instructed so carefully to hold to the teachings that had been given to him by Paul (1 Timothy 1:3; 4:13, 16; 2 Timothy 1:13; 3:14-15; 4:2-4).
Paul is overjoyed at what he has heard about the Ephesians, and he does not stop giving thanks for them; he would be like a new mom or dad who cannot stop glowing about their new baby. Here was a group of believers who were living out their faith in the Lord Jesus – a cause for Paul to be thankful.
Despite the joy and thankfulness that Paul had for the Ephesian saints, they were still in his prayers – making mention of you in my prayers. What comes to mind is Paul’s comment to the Corinthians: “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). Even though the Ephesians received Paul’s commendation for how they were living, he did not stop praying for them. How often I cease to pray (or don’t even begin to pray) for someone who has their act together, so to speak, only to discover later that their lives were falling apart. Perhaps, in a real sense, those who seem to be doing so well may need additional prayer, for they may be the specific targets of the enemy of our souls. Lord, help us to be more faithful in this area.
17. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
Paul is careful to tell the Ephesians Whom he is petitioning. He is calling on the God of our Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Father of glory. This brings together the tremendous omnipotence of God (Who raised Jesus to life) and God, our Father, Who desires to have a relationship with His created, sinful creatures.
Harold J. Ockenga
Paul now expresses the purpose for his prayer to God for the Ephesians: in order to give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.93 Paul’s prayer is that God would, first of all, give to these holy ones of Ephesus a spirit of wisdom and revelation; our translation includes the word may, but the Greek construction does not support this: the intent of Paul’s prayer is that God will give them this wisdom and revelation.94 This has nothing to do with intellect, for God takes pleasure in reversing what we would consider to be the normal order of things: “… God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty” (1 Corinthians 1:27). “In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight” (Luke 10:21). Clearly, the spirit of wisdom, that Paul petitions God to bestow upon the Ephesians, has nothing to do with an Ivy League education or high scholastic achievements. Rather than simply intellect, this is a wisdom that comes from God: a “wisdom that is ... first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy” (James 3:17). New Evangelicalism was pronounced because of (among other things) a “need” to increase the Evangelical intellectual standing in the eyes of the religious Liberals and the world at large. This was Harold Ockenga’s primary goal in helping to found Fuller Seminary,95 and as their intellectual standing rose, their adherence to the Word of God declined. Likewise, the revelation is not something that comes through applying our intellect, but, rather, it is God opening our eyes so that we can come to a better and fuller understanding of Who He is – that promised guidance into all truth (John 16:13). This is spiritual wisdom and revelation – a work of God’s Seal in the lives of His holy ones. As the Spirit of God has the freedom to mold us, instill His wisdom in us, and open His Word to us, we will become increasingly aware of God’s work in our lives, and our responsibility to Him.
Perhaps herein lies some of the danger that lurks within Evangelicalism today; much of what is formulated within the theological circles of the movement is based entirely upon man’s intellect and logic. What we fail to realize is that God’s ways are still higher than our ways, and His thoughts are still higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:9) – even in this day of man’s astronomical advances in science and technology. Man’s intellect will never bring him closer to understanding the ways of God – only the Spirit of God can do that. Yet theologians today, without hesitation, appeal to reason when delineating their theologies. The late Clark Pinnock, an apostate Evangelical theologian, used what has been termed the Wesleyan quadrilateral to describe his theology: the Bible, tradition, experience, and reason.96 However, it has become clear from his own spiritual downward slide, anytime that you add reason to the mix, it will soon become the dominant factor. One of the pillars of the New Evangelical movement (which began in the late 1940’s) was participation in the theological dialogue of the day – a felt need to enhance their scholastic standing in the eyes of the world and Liberals. The result has been a philosophy of Christianity that has become sterile, having lost the reality of Christ and gained the credence of human reason. Out of this has flowed a non-confrontational, positive-only hybrid of the Gospel: something that is really another gospel, and what Paul would unhesitatingly call anathema (Galatians 1:8-9). Hence, we have an even greater need today to measure what we hear against the Word of God, for it must remain our exclusive Guide – the Standard against which man’s reasoning must be held (John 7:24).
The spirit of wisdom and revelation will find its framework in the knowledge of Him. The Greek word translated as knowledge is epignosis, a word that describes a precise and correct, or full, knowledge.97 The wisdom and revelation that God will provide is not instilled in a vacuum – it comes in a full knowledge of God. Jesus said that when the Spirit of truth would come to abide within us, He would guide us into all truth (John 16:13), and He also said: “I am ... the truth” (John 14:6). It is as we permit the Spirit of God to transform our minds that we will grow in our understanding and knowledge of the One Who has paid the price for our sin (Romans 12:2; 2 Peter 3:18).
Perhaps herein lies some of the danger that lurks within Evangelicalism today; much of what is formulated within the theological circles of the movement is based entirely upon man’s intellect and logic. What we fail to realize is that God’s ways are still higher than our ways, and His thoughts are still higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:9) – even in this day of man’s astronomical advances in science and technology. Man’s intellect will never bring him closer to understanding the ways of God – only the Spirit of God can do that. Yet theologians today, without hesitation, appeal to reason when delineating their theologies. The late Clark Pinnock, an apostate Evangelical theologian, used what has been termed the Wesleyan quadrilateral to describe his theology: the Bible, tradition, experience, and reason.96 However, it has become clear from his own spiritual downward slide, anytime that you add reason to the mix, it will soon become the dominant factor. One of the pillars of the New Evangelical movement (which began in the late 1940’s) was participation in the theological dialogue of the day – a felt need to enhance their scholastic standing in the eyes of the world and Liberals. The result has been a philosophy of Christianity that has become sterile, having lost the reality of Christ and gained the credence of human reason. Out of this has flowed a non-confrontational, positive-only hybrid of the Gospel: something that is really another gospel, and what Paul would unhesitatingly call anathema (Galatians 1:8-9). Hence, we have an even greater need today to measure what we hear against the Word of God, for it must remain our exclusive Guide – the Standard against which man’s reasoning must be held (John 7:24).
The spirit of wisdom and revelation will find its framework in the knowledge of Him. The Greek word translated as knowledge is epignosis, a word that describes a precise and correct, or full, knowledge.97 The wisdom and revelation that God will provide is not instilled in a vacuum – it comes in a full knowledge of God. Jesus said that when the Spirit of truth would come to abide within us, He would guide us into all truth (John 16:13), and He also said: “I am ... the truth” (John 14:6). It is as we permit the Spirit of God to transform our minds that we will grow in our understanding and knowledge of the One Who has paid the price for our sin (Romans 12:2; 2 Peter 3:18).
18. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
In broad terms, Paul now provides the focus of his prayer: that the Ephesians’ ability to clearly understand spiritual truths would be enhanced through the work of the Spirit of God. This phrase (the eyes of your understanding being enlightened) is tied directly to what came before, that God would grant to them spiritual wisdom and a revelation of Himself. Enlightened is in the passive voice: it is only through the abiding Spirit of God that we can arrive at a proper understanding of the Scriptures, which are a disclosure of Jesus (Revelation 19:13).98
It is important to remember that we have been called from darkness into light (1 Peter 2:9); therefore, any spirituality that is based upon human intellect, is darkness, no matter how wonderful it may sound. Today, we hear much from the world about being spiritual; a few decades ago, spirituality was left to the fanatics and crackpots, but it has recently become quite fashionable. Oprah is a guru of this fad that has become a strange mixture of all religions, a potion that can be custom blended to meet the felt needs of anyone. It calls for a little of everything: a little Bible (very little), a dash of mysticism of any variety to add zest and, frequently, a generous helping of psychology to bind the whole thing together. There are no rules as to how this blending takes place, and only one rule as to its effectiveness: it must make us feel good! It is also understood that we must all be accepting of everyone’s blend as being valid and true, even if it is only for them. Any suggestion that there is only one way that is right or a truth that is exclusive, is regarded with scorn; within this spirituality there is no place for objective truth. Hence, all secular literature is on an equal standing with the Bible, but then, this is nothing new. The philosophy that saw the development of the corrupt modern Greek text of the New Testament, which underlies all modern translations, sprang from this same falsehood. Society has succumbed to the mind-numbing opiate of relativism: truth is whatever we want it to be, and we are to consider all of the different forms of “truth” that result as being equally valid. Consequently, the monotheistic faiths of the world (Judaism, Islam and Christianity) became the proverbial fly in the ointment; yet today we are seeing these eroding and morphing so that they, too, can fit into this relativistic model. Ever since 9-11, great efforts have been made by non-Muslims to make Islam palatable to the western mind. Men like Rick Warren (as well as the late Robert Schuller and Pope John Paul II) consider Allah to be the same as the God of the Bible, and Islam is being falsely portrayed as a religion of peace and tolerance. There has been a gradual but definite eroding of the fundamentals of the Evangelical faith within the minds of those who are its leaders; could this be the falling away that will take place before the revealing of the Antichrist (2 Thessalonians 2:3)?
However, when the Spirit of God touches our spiritual eyes, we will come to understand things that are hidden from the worldly wise – “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). A dead person cannot see the things about him, and likewise, neither can a spiritually dead person perceive the spiritual truths of the living God; until we are made alive by the Spirit of God through faith in Christ, we are “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). Therefore, someone who is spiritually dead (no matter how religious they might be) will never be able to understand the Word of God given to those who are His.
For you to have come to know what is the hope of His calling.99 This is the first of three things that Paul now delineates, which form the core of his prayer for the Ephesians. What is the calling of God for the believer? In writing to the Thessalonians, Paul declared that God “called you unto his kingdom and glory” (1 Thessalonians 2:12), and further: “called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 2:14). God is calling (in the first reference, called is in the present tense) us to His own kingdom, and to the glory of the risen Lord Jesus.100 Herein lies our hope: the Good News is God’s means of calling us to be a part of His kingdom, where He has prepared a work for us (Ephesians 2:10), and this is available to us through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our hope in God is present today, but the fact that it is hope means that there is an expectation of something more – indeed, it reaches into eternity! Because Christ is our Savior and High Priest, may we be holding fast the confession of the hope without wavering, for He Who did promise is faithful (Hebrews 10:23).101 Our hope lies in Christ Who is eternally faithful! The wonder of it all is that this is something that we do not deserve; it is God Who did save us and did call with a holy invitation, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and the grace given to us in Christ Jesus before times eternal (2 Timothy 1:9, literal).102 This is a holy invitation given by a holy God to an unholy people Whom He did save through the blood of His Son: our hope is in God Who saves us and calls us in Christ, and, as we are in Christ, we are recipients of His grace that was prepared before time began! Even as His calling does not rest upon our efforts, so our hope is not in ourselves, but in God. Paul’s prayer is that, through the working of the Spirit of God in us, we would come to know, with great certainty, the tremendous hope that we have in God’s calling us to His eternal glory and His eternal kingdom (1 Thessalonians 2:12).
The second thing that Paul has for the Ephesians (and us) to come to know is the infinite greatness of God’s glorious inheritance that He has in the saints. Here is something we do not hear much about. There is a double inheritance spoken of in the Bible: the inheritance that the saints of God have in Christ, and the inheritance that God has in the saints who are in Christ. In the OT, we read of Israel being God’s holy possession, His inheritance among the peoples of the world (Psalm 78:71). The Hebrew word that is translated as inheritance “refers to a ‘possession’ to which one has received the legal claim.”103 The first time that Moses communed with the Lord at Mt. Sinai, He was given these words for Israel: “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure [cᵉgullah; primarily used for personal property, then a valued possession] unto me above [out of] all people: for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation” (Exodus 19:5-6a).104 Notice that the Lord’s identification of Israel as being His possession was conditional upon their obedience. As we ponder Israel as the Lord’s possession (subsequent to Mt. Sinai), we quickly realize that Israel did not follow the Lord very well at all! As a people, Israel never became that peculiar treasure of Jehovah, but the Lord did call them to carry the promise that He had made to Abraham: “… in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:3b). He clarified this to Abraham: “Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad [Ishmael], and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called” (Genesis 21:12). Even though Abraham had Ishmael, and several other children afterward (Genesis 25:1-2), the Lord assured him that His Seed would come through Isaac – the promised blessing was carried by calling, not merely procreation.
Paul elaborated on this theme in his letter to the Romans: For the promise is not to Abraham nor to his seed by way of the Law (his seed being an heir of the world) but through the faith of righteousness. For if heirs [inheritors] by the Law, the faith has been made void and the promise has been abolished (Romans 4:13-14, literal).105 In other words, the children of Israel, as the recipients of the Law of Moses, were not the de facto heirs of the promise made to Abraham inasmuch as the promise did not spring from the Law but from Abraham’s belief in Jehovah (his faith): his conviction that Jehovah was faithful to His word. Paul refers to Abraham’s Seed being an heir of the world, and we have just considered the assurance that all things in heaven and earth will be brought together in Christ (v. 10). Seed is an interesting word: in English, Hebrew and Greek the word is the same whether singular (as in one) or singular as in a collective whole (many, yet considered as being one collective unit). Therefore, particular attention needs to be given to the context of such words. In this instance (his seed being an heir of the world), seed is singular, but the word heir (which does not carry the same anomaly as the word seed) is also singular thereby making the seed One (not a collective unit). The promise to Abraham was that through him shall all families of the earth be blessed (Genesis 12:3), and Paul understood this to point specifically to Christ!
It is clear in Ephesians 1:4 that we are a people chosen by God in Christ before the foundation of the world. As His people, we 1) obtain an inheritance in Christ (v.11), and 2) in Christ become an inheritance to God (v.18). When we think of riches, it is generally in terms of wealth in this life; but when God speaks of riches within this context, it is far beyond our comprehension. His riches will be reflected through those who are chosen in Christ: His holy ones, His inheritance – those who are the beneficiaries of His grace! I deliberately use the words will be reflected, for any glory that will come from the faithful in Christ Jesus will be a direct result of the work of Christ and our abiding faithfully in Him, and the full reflection will only come when we are in glory with Him. Those who have had their debt of sin paid can take no credit for the payment that was made by Christ!
Before we leave the subject of the saints being an inheritance to God, we must briefly consider the impact that this has on the Calvinists’ doctrine of Unconditional Election (the U of TULIP). One of the central tenets of Calvinism is their belief that God has predetermined every individual who will be saved, and that He did so from eternity past: “By election we mean the eternal choice by God of certain definite individuals in Jesus Christ unto salvation.”106 Although there are parts of Ephesians chapter one that they like to use in support of their theology, this is not one of them. Since the saints are God’s inheritance, they cannot have been individually pre-selected by Him from eternity past – that is not an inheritance! Scripture identifies the saints as those who place their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and live faithfully for Him – Paul calls these God’s inheritance. A definition of the Greek word behind inheritance is this: “what is received as a gift from someone who has died.”107 Within this context, it is Christ Who has died. Through His death and resurrection, we, who are faithfully abiding in Him, will inherit His kingdom and glory; at the same time, and also through Christ’s death and resurrection, those from all ages who are in Christ are either a firstfruit to His Father (OT saints), will be a part of the full harvest to God (NT saints at the rapture), or the gleanings of the Millennial saints at the end of time (God’s inheritance that is made possible by Christ’s atoning work). This is another in a long list of Bible texts that raises a question mark over Calvinistic doctrine. We must be alert and test all things (and everyone) against the standard of God’s Word (1 John 4:1).
In broad terms, Paul now provides the focus of his prayer: that the Ephesians’ ability to clearly understand spiritual truths would be enhanced through the work of the Spirit of God. This phrase (the eyes of your understanding being enlightened) is tied directly to what came before, that God would grant to them spiritual wisdom and a revelation of Himself. Enlightened is in the passive voice: it is only through the abiding Spirit of God that we can arrive at a proper understanding of the Scriptures, which are a disclosure of Jesus (Revelation 19:13).98
It is important to remember that we have been called from darkness into light (1 Peter 2:9); therefore, any spirituality that is based upon human intellect, is darkness, no matter how wonderful it may sound. Today, we hear much from the world about being spiritual; a few decades ago, spirituality was left to the fanatics and crackpots, but it has recently become quite fashionable. Oprah is a guru of this fad that has become a strange mixture of all religions, a potion that can be custom blended to meet the felt needs of anyone. It calls for a little of everything: a little Bible (very little), a dash of mysticism of any variety to add zest and, frequently, a generous helping of psychology to bind the whole thing together. There are no rules as to how this blending takes place, and only one rule as to its effectiveness: it must make us feel good! It is also understood that we must all be accepting of everyone’s blend as being valid and true, even if it is only for them. Any suggestion that there is only one way that is right or a truth that is exclusive, is regarded with scorn; within this spirituality there is no place for objective truth. Hence, all secular literature is on an equal standing with the Bible, but then, this is nothing new. The philosophy that saw the development of the corrupt modern Greek text of the New Testament, which underlies all modern translations, sprang from this same falsehood. Society has succumbed to the mind-numbing opiate of relativism: truth is whatever we want it to be, and we are to consider all of the different forms of “truth” that result as being equally valid. Consequently, the monotheistic faiths of the world (Judaism, Islam and Christianity) became the proverbial fly in the ointment; yet today we are seeing these eroding and morphing so that they, too, can fit into this relativistic model. Ever since 9-11, great efforts have been made by non-Muslims to make Islam palatable to the western mind. Men like Rick Warren (as well as the late Robert Schuller and Pope John Paul II) consider Allah to be the same as the God of the Bible, and Islam is being falsely portrayed as a religion of peace and tolerance. There has been a gradual but definite eroding of the fundamentals of the Evangelical faith within the minds of those who are its leaders; could this be the falling away that will take place before the revealing of the Antichrist (2 Thessalonians 2:3)?
However, when the Spirit of God touches our spiritual eyes, we will come to understand things that are hidden from the worldly wise – “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). A dead person cannot see the things about him, and likewise, neither can a spiritually dead person perceive the spiritual truths of the living God; until we are made alive by the Spirit of God through faith in Christ, we are “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). Therefore, someone who is spiritually dead (no matter how religious they might be) will never be able to understand the Word of God given to those who are His.
For you to have come to know what is the hope of His calling.99 This is the first of three things that Paul now delineates, which form the core of his prayer for the Ephesians. What is the calling of God for the believer? In writing to the Thessalonians, Paul declared that God “called you unto his kingdom and glory” (1 Thessalonians 2:12), and further: “called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 2:14). God is calling (in the first reference, called is in the present tense) us to His own kingdom, and to the glory of the risen Lord Jesus.100 Herein lies our hope: the Good News is God’s means of calling us to be a part of His kingdom, where He has prepared a work for us (Ephesians 2:10), and this is available to us through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our hope in God is present today, but the fact that it is hope means that there is an expectation of something more – indeed, it reaches into eternity! Because Christ is our Savior and High Priest, may we be holding fast the confession of the hope without wavering, for He Who did promise is faithful (Hebrews 10:23).101 Our hope lies in Christ Who is eternally faithful! The wonder of it all is that this is something that we do not deserve; it is God Who did save us and did call with a holy invitation, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and the grace given to us in Christ Jesus before times eternal (2 Timothy 1:9, literal).102 This is a holy invitation given by a holy God to an unholy people Whom He did save through the blood of His Son: our hope is in God Who saves us and calls us in Christ, and, as we are in Christ, we are recipients of His grace that was prepared before time began! Even as His calling does not rest upon our efforts, so our hope is not in ourselves, but in God. Paul’s prayer is that, through the working of the Spirit of God in us, we would come to know, with great certainty, the tremendous hope that we have in God’s calling us to His eternal glory and His eternal kingdom (1 Thessalonians 2:12).
The second thing that Paul has for the Ephesians (and us) to come to know is the infinite greatness of God’s glorious inheritance that He has in the saints. Here is something we do not hear much about. There is a double inheritance spoken of in the Bible: the inheritance that the saints of God have in Christ, and the inheritance that God has in the saints who are in Christ. In the OT, we read of Israel being God’s holy possession, His inheritance among the peoples of the world (Psalm 78:71). The Hebrew word that is translated as inheritance “refers to a ‘possession’ to which one has received the legal claim.”103 The first time that Moses communed with the Lord at Mt. Sinai, He was given these words for Israel: “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure [cᵉgullah; primarily used for personal property, then a valued possession] unto me above [out of] all people: for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation” (Exodus 19:5-6a).104 Notice that the Lord’s identification of Israel as being His possession was conditional upon their obedience. As we ponder Israel as the Lord’s possession (subsequent to Mt. Sinai), we quickly realize that Israel did not follow the Lord very well at all! As a people, Israel never became that peculiar treasure of Jehovah, but the Lord did call them to carry the promise that He had made to Abraham: “… in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:3b). He clarified this to Abraham: “Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad [Ishmael], and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called” (Genesis 21:12). Even though Abraham had Ishmael, and several other children afterward (Genesis 25:1-2), the Lord assured him that His Seed would come through Isaac – the promised blessing was carried by calling, not merely procreation.
Paul elaborated on this theme in his letter to the Romans: For the promise is not to Abraham nor to his seed by way of the Law (his seed being an heir of the world) but through the faith of righteousness. For if heirs [inheritors] by the Law, the faith has been made void and the promise has been abolished (Romans 4:13-14, literal).105 In other words, the children of Israel, as the recipients of the Law of Moses, were not the de facto heirs of the promise made to Abraham inasmuch as the promise did not spring from the Law but from Abraham’s belief in Jehovah (his faith): his conviction that Jehovah was faithful to His word. Paul refers to Abraham’s Seed being an heir of the world, and we have just considered the assurance that all things in heaven and earth will be brought together in Christ (v. 10). Seed is an interesting word: in English, Hebrew and Greek the word is the same whether singular (as in one) or singular as in a collective whole (many, yet considered as being one collective unit). Therefore, particular attention needs to be given to the context of such words. In this instance (his seed being an heir of the world), seed is singular, but the word heir (which does not carry the same anomaly as the word seed) is also singular thereby making the seed One (not a collective unit). The promise to Abraham was that through him shall all families of the earth be blessed (Genesis 12:3), and Paul understood this to point specifically to Christ!
It is clear in Ephesians 1:4 that we are a people chosen by God in Christ before the foundation of the world. As His people, we 1) obtain an inheritance in Christ (v.11), and 2) in Christ become an inheritance to God (v.18). When we think of riches, it is generally in terms of wealth in this life; but when God speaks of riches within this context, it is far beyond our comprehension. His riches will be reflected through those who are chosen in Christ: His holy ones, His inheritance – those who are the beneficiaries of His grace! I deliberately use the words will be reflected, for any glory that will come from the faithful in Christ Jesus will be a direct result of the work of Christ and our abiding faithfully in Him, and the full reflection will only come when we are in glory with Him. Those who have had their debt of sin paid can take no credit for the payment that was made by Christ!
Before we leave the subject of the saints being an inheritance to God, we must briefly consider the impact that this has on the Calvinists’ doctrine of Unconditional Election (the U of TULIP). One of the central tenets of Calvinism is their belief that God has predetermined every individual who will be saved, and that He did so from eternity past: “By election we mean the eternal choice by God of certain definite individuals in Jesus Christ unto salvation.”106 Although there are parts of Ephesians chapter one that they like to use in support of their theology, this is not one of them. Since the saints are God’s inheritance, they cannot have been individually pre-selected by Him from eternity past – that is not an inheritance! Scripture identifies the saints as those who place their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and live faithfully for Him – Paul calls these God’s inheritance. A definition of the Greek word behind inheritance is this: “what is received as a gift from someone who has died.”107 Within this context, it is Christ Who has died. Through His death and resurrection, we, who are faithfully abiding in Him, will inherit His kingdom and glory; at the same time, and also through Christ’s death and resurrection, those from all ages who are in Christ are either a firstfruit to His Father (OT saints), will be a part of the full harvest to God (NT saints at the rapture), or the gleanings of the Millennial saints at the end of time (God’s inheritance that is made possible by Christ’s atoning work). This is another in a long list of Bible texts that raises a question mark over Calvinistic doctrine. We must be alert and test all things (and everyone) against the standard of God’s Word (1 John 4:1).
Bruce Wilkinson
19. And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,
Here is the third thing that Paul prays that we will come to know – the greatness of the power of God that has been exercised toward us. We really have no idea of the power of God. Charismatic Benny Hinn, believes that God is a miracle-worker, and then he tries to harness that power into a formula, or an evangelistic methodology, so that he can perform “miracles” at his call. Bruce Wilkinson is convinced that God can do anything, and he seeks to encourage everyone to invoke God’s abundant blessings by repeating the prayer of a little known OT man, Jabez (1 Chronicles 4:9-10).
Other Evangelicals have reduced the power of God to a doctrine that can be compromised or rationalized into oblivion at will. All of these fail to recognize, to any degree, all that God has done in bringing us to salvation, His great protection that assists us to walk faithfully with Him, and His omnipotence that will one day change our mortal into immortality if we remain faithful to Him. The Christian life is really the power of God in action! Even though God will display His wondrous creative energies when He establishes a new heaven and a new earth (as He did when creating this present universe), what He has done for us in providing salvation is by far the greatest example of His marvelous power. In six days, God spoke the universe into being (in all of its intricate uniqueness). Yet that pales in significance when compared to what He has done to take a willing sinner (who is dead in sin), make him alive in Christ, adopt him as His own child (complete with an inheritance that is beyond description), and then call that child His own inheritance! For all that He has done, can we do anything other than bow before Him and walk in obedience to Him? How carefully we need to guard our hearts against a deadly root of unbelief (Hebrews 3:12)! What price could our obedience to Him possibly exact from us that could even begin to compare with what He has done for us, and is prepared to do for us for all of eternity (Romans 8:18)?
Just in case we didn’t catch it the first time, Paul reiterates that this is according to the working of God’s mighty power. Once again, we realize that the magnitude of all that God has prepared for us does not depend upon anything that we can do – it is God Who has worked to open the way for man to fellowship with Him, and it is His conditional gift to us!
20. Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised
In the previous verse, Paul was underscoring the power of God that has been shown in the lives of believers. Now, coming back to one of the themes that he has been developing, Paul reminds us that this power was evidenced when Christ was raised from the dead; all that we enjoy as believers is because of Christ’s death and resurrection. God demonstrated His mighty power by physically raising His Son, Jesus Christ, from the dead, thereby gaining victory over the death that Satan had introduced into the world through Adam and Eve. The OT saints looked forward to the day when the Seed of the woman would bruise the head of Satan (Genesis 3:15) and deal him a fatal blow; they died in faith, anticipating that day (Hebrews 11:13). Jesus’ death and resurrection completed what the OT saints had looked forward to: He is “the author [founder] and finisher of [the] faith”108 (Hebrews 12:2) – both their faith and our faith (for it is one!). Satan labored, from the promise that God made in Genesis 3 through to the work that Jesus finished on the cross, in an effort to avoid what God had promised to him. Knowing that his destiny has been sealed, Satan now goes about like a roaring lion looking for those of mankind whom he might devour, or destroy (1 Peter 5:8). His work now is to blind, confuse, and otherwise keep humanity in the dark concerning what God has accomplished by the way of the cross. The warning that Peter gives is addressed to Christians: we must take heed that we do not fall prey to the wiles of Satan, for the primary targets of his wanderings are the children of God (Revelation 12:17). As believers, we are not immune to his destructive activity – Jesus warned us: Be watching lest anyone should lead you astray (Matthew 24:4, literal);109 perhaps one of the most cunningly destructive crafts of the devil is today’s push for tolerance and accommodation. Tolerance and acceptance are considered to be far more important than Biblically correct doctrine and truth; the former is inclusive, friendly and feigns love, yet leads to ruin, while the latter is exclusive and narrow, and leads to life (Matthew 7:13-14). Many within the Evangelical community show great disdain for those who live in obedience to the Lord’s commands; the Ecumenical mind has become accepted as the norm within this community of professing Christians who thrive on compromising Biblical teachings and accommodating aberrant and heretical doctrines.
An associate editor of Christianity Today (Agnieszka Tennant) wrote an article in 2005 titled “How the Pope Turned Me into an Evangelical.”110 In it she says: “Before my conversion to the religion of Billy Graham … I had never been to a home that didn’t display the retouched images of Poland’s holy trinity. I’m talking, of course, about Mary (commonly referred to as the Queen of Poland), the fruit of her womb Jesus Christ, and a devoted follower of theirs, the pope.”111 She went on to say:
“I met Christ in an Evangelical way, and soon shed my devotion to Mary and the pope, forgetting how much I owed both of them.
“But now I return to them.
“I return to Mary as to a sister whose obedience I wish I had. And I return to the late pope, with a prayer of gratitude. …
“And I thank God for [the pope’s] ecumenism, which gave me permission to explore the religion of Billy Graham ….”112
Here is an associate editor of a leading Evangelical magazine touting the fact that she has returned to Catholicism, yet still finds sanctuary within the confines of Billy Graham’s form of Christianity (once acclaimed as being New Evangelicalism). The pope has a religion, and Billy Graham has a religion: clearly, there is very little difference between the two; in that, there is much truth. Neither one adheres to the Word of God, and both compromise the clear instruction of the Scriptures. Christianity Today, the voice of the New Evangelical movement (which is no longer New), has made its compromise abundantly clear.
There have always been those who claim that Christ did not really die, but simply swooned, or went into a coma. However, of this Paul leaves no doubt when he says that Christ was raised from the dead: it means that He was lifeless; there was no physical life in Him – when Jesus commended His spirit (breath) to the Father and gave up the ghost, He died (Luke 23:46)! God raised Him out of the dead – He was numbered among the dead, but is now raised to never die again (Romans 6:9).113
The power of God not only raised Christ from the dead, but also did seat Him on His right in the heavenlies.114 Jesus, the eternal Son of God, is seated in His glorified body with God, the Father. Jesus, eternally with the Father and the Spirit as the Word (John 1:1), took on the body of a man in order to pay the debt for sin that man owed, so that He could make salvation available to all of mankind by shedding His blood (Hebrews 9:22), and break the power of the devil (Hebrews 2:14-15). Having taken on the body of a man, He bore the punishment for sin and will carry the scars of His sacrifice to eternity in His resurrected, glorified body, even as He showed them to Thomas (John 20:27).
21. Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:
Paul goes on to describe the exaltation of Jesus; the fact that He has been seated with the Father in the heavenlies should say it all, but he wants to ensure that we grasp the full reality of what this means. Far above is from the single Greek word huperano: ano means above, and huper strengthens that to mean beyond above.115 God has taken Him to the pinnacle of all that is possible to consider or imagine. Paul now ellaborates on what He is beyond above. The next phrase comes from the Greek root pas arche; pas is in the singular and so is best translated as every, arche refers to primacy (that which is first in time or utmost in authority).116 Since time doesn’t fit within this context, we understand that Jesus has been placed in a position of authority that is beyond above every other authority. Power (exousia) speaks of authority (not might) with the inherent right to act without being questioned – often applied to governments in this world.117 Might (dunamis) is most often translated as power, and refers to strength or inherent ability.118 Dominion (kuriotes) carries the root word kurios or lord: those who hold the might, power and authority as lord over others.119 When Satan tempted Jesus, he offered Him the kingdoms of the world in return for Jesus’ submission (Matthew 4:8-9); yet here we see that Jesus has been raised far above everything that Satan offered to Him. He has been placed higher than any other being – any name that is named; no matter who it is, Jesus has been exalted higher, and that’s not just within this world, it also applies to the world that will come. As John beheld the New Jerusalem descending out of the New Heaven onto the New Earth, he wrote: “And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof” (Revelation 21:22-23). Jesus, the only Mediator between man and God, has been raised to a place that is above everything!
22. And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,
23. Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.
Paul summarizes the position of Christ, Whom God has raised far above all things in this world and the next, by stating that all things God did put into subjection under His feet.120 When Adam sinned, he surrendered his God-given dominion (ability and authority) over the earth to Satan (Genesis 1:28; we see that Jesus did not dispute Satan’s right over all of the kingdoms of the earth, Luke 4:6-8). Through His sacrifice, Christ not only procured salvation for lost mankind, but He (as the perfect Man) also regained the right to rule over the earth, which He will exercise during the Millennium (Revelation 20:6). Paul has given Christ’s exalted position great emphasis – not surprising, since He is God (Philippians 2:6-7)!
And He did give Him, Head over all things, to the called-out ones.121 We have just seen that Christ has been placed beyond all authorities and powers, and now it is clarified that He is also the Head of the called-out ones (ekklesia), His Body (1 Corinthians 12:27). This introduces the subject of the ekklesia (most often translated as church), of which Paul will have much more to teach the Ephesians and us.
The Greek word translated as church is ekklesia (ek-klay-see’-ah), and literally, it means a gathering of called-out ones.122 The Greek word for church is kuriakon, which means a temple of God, or god, and comes from kuriakos meaning pertaining to a Lord.123 We often hear that “the church is the people,” and within our modern context, that is true some of the time. However, the Greek word (ekklesia) that is most frequently translated as church, speaks only of the people, and not of the building, nor of the system of doctrine or authority that today defines a “church.” Interestingly, the Greek word (kuriakon), which would have correctly been translated as church, does not appear anywhere in the text of Scripture. Unfortunately, we too often associate the word church with the building and/or the organizational structure that we have become accustomed to, rather than recognizing that it is really God’s called-out ones, and the very limited organization that Scripture outlines for us. It seems evident that we have inherited much from the Roman Catholic Church – an inheritance that has nothing at all to do with what God desires for His inheritance.
Christ is the Head and Protector of the saints; He will guard the spiritual welfare of those who are His against outside attack. “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD” (Isaiah 54:17). What is abundantly evident from Isaiah’s words is that the OT saints enjoyed this same spiritual protection. In ourselves, we are not invincible, but, as we abide in the Vine, we are assured of His protection from every outside foe (John 10:28-29) – not necessarily physically, but spiritually. Jesus’ words were that He would build His assembly of believers, and that the gates (or counsels) of hell (Hades) would not prevail (be strong) against them (Matthew 16:18).124 Despite all of this protection from outside forces, we must remain ever vigilant against being deceived (internal failure) and drawn away from the Lord (Matthew 24:4; Hebrews 3:12).
Which is from a Greek pronoun that is feminine and singular; ekklesia is also feminine/singular; hence, we have: the ekklesia, who is His body.125 Paul tells us a bit more about His body: the full measure of Him Who is completing all things in every way.126 Ponder this: the eternal Word became the Son of God and Man, paid the price for the sins of humanity, and is now eternally as one with those who are in Him – His identity is now forever linked to those who are His by faith (Hebrews 2:16-17)! From eternity past, it was in the foreknowledge of God (including the Word, Who became the Only Begotten of the Father [John 1:14]) that He would redeem a people for Himself – a people who would be His, being both their Creator and Savior. Even in the New Heaven and Earth, the Word is called the Lamb – the Sacrifice for the sins of humanity (Revelation 22:1)!
Once again, we are advised that God will be gathering in one all things in Christ, but this tells us that Christ is already at work preparing for the day that is coming – and nothing will be left out. Yet the full measure of Christ is His Body (the ekklesia) of redeemed ones who are in Him – not the all things that will be brought together in Him! Christ is inextricably identified with His saints – those who are living in faithful obedience to Him.
ENDNOTES:
1 Strong’s Online, (http://onlinebible.net/).
2 Ibid.
3 Strong’s Online; Friberg Lexicon, Bibleworks 8.
4 Strong’s Online.
5 Ibid.
6 Stephanus 1550 NT, Bibleworks 8; Strong’s Online.
7 Stephanus 1550 NT.
8 Strong’s Online.
9 Friberg Lexicon.
10 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faithful; Friberg Lexicon.
11 Strong’s Online; Friberg Lexicon.
12 Brown, Driver, Briggs Hebrew Lexicon (BDB), Bibleworks 8; Theological Wordbook of the OT, #2401a, Bibleworks 8.
13 Strong’s Online; Friberg Lexicon; Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, “blessed.”
14 Strong’s Online.
15 Stephanus 1550 NT.
16 https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/jehovah-witness-beliefs/
17 https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/doctrine-and-covenants-student-manual-2017/chapter-51-doctrine-and-covenants-131-132-1-33?lang=eng; Doctrines and Covenants 132:20.
18 https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2021/03/once-again-pope-francis-says-mary-is-not-the-co-redemptrix/
19 Cathy Burns, Billy Graham and His Friends, p. 19.
20 Stephanus 1550 NT.
21 Stephanus 1550 NT; Friberg Lexicon.
22 Strong’s Online.
23 Stephanus 1550 NT.
24 Stephanus 1550 NT; Friberg Lexicon.
25 This is the “L” of their TULIP: Limited Atonement; for more on this aberration of God’s truth, see https://www.thenarrowtruth.com/the-tulip-of-calvinism.html.
26 Friberg Lexicon; Strong’s Online.
27 Stephanus 1550 NT.
28 Stephanus 1550 NT; https://www.ntgreek.org/learn_nt_greek/subj-purpose.htm.
29 Strong’s Online.
30 Ibid.
31 Stephanus 1550 NT; Friberg Lexicon.
32 Strong’s Online.
33 Ibid.
34 Burns, Billy Graham, p. 19.
35 Strong’s Online.
36 Ibid.
37 Stephanus 1550 NT.
38 Ibid.
39 Kathryn Spink, Mother Teresa, p. 87.
40 https://www.mmoutreach.org/aberrant/universalism/influence_of_universalism2.htm.
41 Strong’s Online.
42 Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828 edition.
43 Strong’s Online.
44 Friberg Lexicon; https://www.ntgreek.org/learn_nt_greek/subj-negation.htm.
45 Friberg Lexicon.
46 Ibid.
47 Strong’s Online; Friberg Lexicon.
48 To reduce confusion in my own mind, and to draw an important distinction that many people miss, I refer to the Ten Commandments (specifically written by God) as being the Law of God, and the other regulations for the sacrifices, the priesthood, daily living, etc. as the Law of Moses.
49 Strong’s Online.
50 Strong’s Online; Friberg Lexicon.
51 Strong’s Online.
52 Stephanus 1550 NT; Friberg Lexicon.
53 Strong’s Online.
54 Friberg Lexicon.
55 Stephanus 1550 NT; Friberg Lexicon.
56 Vine’s “mystery.”
57 Stephanus 1550 NT; Strong’s Online; https://www.ntgreek.org/learn_nt_greek/subj-purpose.htm.
58 Friberg Lexicon; Stephanus 1550 NT.
59 Taking a broad view of history and prophecy, there are only three times when God’s grace toward humanity was/will be suspended: 1) when Noah entered into the ark and God closed the door, His grace was withheld from the humanity left on the outside of the ark as they faced the flood. 2) As Lot and his family left the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, God’s grace was no longer extended to their wicked inhabitants. 3) After the Lord returns to harvest the earth of His own (the rapture), His grace will be withdrawn from those who are left on earth, as they face the time of the outpouring of His wrath (Luke 17:26-30).
60 Vine’s “dispensation”; Strong’s Online.
61 Stephanus 1550 NT; Friberg Lexicon.
62 Those who enter the Millennium after surviving the wrath of God, will have no opportunity to be saved; their eternal destiny was sealed when they missed the rapture – in the same way that those who did not enter the ark, perished in the flood.
63 Stephanus 1550 NT.
64 Strong’s Online.
65 Ibid.
66 Friberg Lexicon.
67 Stephanus 1550 NT.
68 Ibid.
69 Stephanus 1550 NT; Friberg Lexicon.
70 Stephanus 1550 NT.
71 Strong’s Online; Friberg Lexicon.
72 David V. Martin, Trinity International University 1897-1997, (TIU, 1998), p. 19.
73 Gingrich Lexicon.
74 Stephanus 1550 NT.
75 Strong’s Online; Friberg Lexicon.
76 https://www.ntgreek.org/learn_nt_greek/subj-purpose.htm.
77 Friberg Lexicon.
78 Stephanus 1550 NT.
79 Strong’s Online.
80 Stephanus 1550 NT; Friberg Lexicon.
81 Strong’s Online; Friberg Lexicon.
82 Ibid.
83 Strong’s Online.
84 https://www.ntgreek.org/learn_nt_greek/subj-negation.htm.
85 Strong’s Online.
86 Ibid.
87 Stephanus 1550 NT.
88 Strong’s Online.
89 Richard Bennett, “The Adulation of Man in the Purpose Driven Life.”
90 Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life, p. 34.
91 Bennett.
92 Friberg Lexicon.
93 Stephanus 1550 NT.
94 https://www.ntgreek.org/learn_nt_greek/subj-purpose.htm.
95 Harold’s name is pronounced Ock-in-gay (http://www.gordonconwell.edu/resources/Ockenga.cfm).
96 David Wilkinson, Christian Eschatology and the Physical Universe, p. 173.
97 Strong’s Online.
98 Ibid.
99 Stephanus 1550 NT.
100 Ibid.
101 Ibid.
102 Ibid.
103 Vine’s, “To Inherit.”
104 Strong’s Online; Theological Wordbook of the OT, #1460; BDB.
105 Stephanus 1550 NT; Liddell-Scott Greek Lexicon.
106 http://www.reformedspokane.org/Doctrine_pages/Calvinism%20%26%20Sovereign%20Grace/books_folder/Saved%20By%20Grace/Saved_By_Grace3.html
107 Friberg Lexicon.
108 Friberg Lexicon; Stephanus 1550 NT.
109 Stephanus 1550 NT.
110 http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/aprilweb-only/12.0.html
111 Agnieszka Tennant, “How the Pope Turned Me into an Evangelical,” http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct /2005/aprilweb-only/12.0.html
112 Ibid.
113 Stephanus 1550 NT.
114 Ibid.
115 Strong’s Online.
116 Friberg Lexicon; Strong’s Online; Gingrich Lexicon.
117 Gingrich Lexicon.
118 Strong’s Online.
119 Ibid.
120 Stephanus 1550 NT.
121 Ibid.
122 Strong’s Online.
123 Webster’s 1828 Dictionary, “church.”
124 Strong’s Online.
125 Stephanus 1550 NT.
126 Stephanus 1550 NT; Friberg Lexicon.
1 Strong’s Online, (http://onlinebible.net/).
2 Ibid.
3 Strong’s Online; Friberg Lexicon, Bibleworks 8.
4 Strong’s Online.
5 Ibid.
6 Stephanus 1550 NT, Bibleworks 8; Strong’s Online.
7 Stephanus 1550 NT.
8 Strong’s Online.
9 Friberg Lexicon.
10 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faithful; Friberg Lexicon.
11 Strong’s Online; Friberg Lexicon.
12 Brown, Driver, Briggs Hebrew Lexicon (BDB), Bibleworks 8; Theological Wordbook of the OT, #2401a, Bibleworks 8.
13 Strong’s Online; Friberg Lexicon; Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, “blessed.”
14 Strong’s Online.
15 Stephanus 1550 NT.
16 https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/jehovah-witness-beliefs/
17 https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/doctrine-and-covenants-student-manual-2017/chapter-51-doctrine-and-covenants-131-132-1-33?lang=eng; Doctrines and Covenants 132:20.
18 https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2021/03/once-again-pope-francis-says-mary-is-not-the-co-redemptrix/
19 Cathy Burns, Billy Graham and His Friends, p. 19.
20 Stephanus 1550 NT.
21 Stephanus 1550 NT; Friberg Lexicon.
22 Strong’s Online.
23 Stephanus 1550 NT.
24 Stephanus 1550 NT; Friberg Lexicon.
25 This is the “L” of their TULIP: Limited Atonement; for more on this aberration of God’s truth, see https://www.thenarrowtruth.com/the-tulip-of-calvinism.html.
26 Friberg Lexicon; Strong’s Online.
27 Stephanus 1550 NT.
28 Stephanus 1550 NT; https://www.ntgreek.org/learn_nt_greek/subj-purpose.htm.
29 Strong’s Online.
30 Ibid.
31 Stephanus 1550 NT; Friberg Lexicon.
32 Strong’s Online.
33 Ibid.
34 Burns, Billy Graham, p. 19.
35 Strong’s Online.
36 Ibid.
37 Stephanus 1550 NT.
38 Ibid.
39 Kathryn Spink, Mother Teresa, p. 87.
40 https://www.mmoutreach.org/aberrant/universalism/influence_of_universalism2.htm.
41 Strong’s Online.
42 Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828 edition.
43 Strong’s Online.
44 Friberg Lexicon; https://www.ntgreek.org/learn_nt_greek/subj-negation.htm.
45 Friberg Lexicon.
46 Ibid.
47 Strong’s Online; Friberg Lexicon.
48 To reduce confusion in my own mind, and to draw an important distinction that many people miss, I refer to the Ten Commandments (specifically written by God) as being the Law of God, and the other regulations for the sacrifices, the priesthood, daily living, etc. as the Law of Moses.
49 Strong’s Online.
50 Strong’s Online; Friberg Lexicon.
51 Strong’s Online.
52 Stephanus 1550 NT; Friberg Lexicon.
53 Strong’s Online.
54 Friberg Lexicon.
55 Stephanus 1550 NT; Friberg Lexicon.
56 Vine’s “mystery.”
57 Stephanus 1550 NT; Strong’s Online; https://www.ntgreek.org/learn_nt_greek/subj-purpose.htm.
58 Friberg Lexicon; Stephanus 1550 NT.
59 Taking a broad view of history and prophecy, there are only three times when God’s grace toward humanity was/will be suspended: 1) when Noah entered into the ark and God closed the door, His grace was withheld from the humanity left on the outside of the ark as they faced the flood. 2) As Lot and his family left the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, God’s grace was no longer extended to their wicked inhabitants. 3) After the Lord returns to harvest the earth of His own (the rapture), His grace will be withdrawn from those who are left on earth, as they face the time of the outpouring of His wrath (Luke 17:26-30).
60 Vine’s “dispensation”; Strong’s Online.
61 Stephanus 1550 NT; Friberg Lexicon.
62 Those who enter the Millennium after surviving the wrath of God, will have no opportunity to be saved; their eternal destiny was sealed when they missed the rapture – in the same way that those who did not enter the ark, perished in the flood.
63 Stephanus 1550 NT.
64 Strong’s Online.
65 Ibid.
66 Friberg Lexicon.
67 Stephanus 1550 NT.
68 Ibid.
69 Stephanus 1550 NT; Friberg Lexicon.
70 Stephanus 1550 NT.
71 Strong’s Online; Friberg Lexicon.
72 David V. Martin, Trinity International University 1897-1997, (TIU, 1998), p. 19.
73 Gingrich Lexicon.
74 Stephanus 1550 NT.
75 Strong’s Online; Friberg Lexicon.
76 https://www.ntgreek.org/learn_nt_greek/subj-purpose.htm.
77 Friberg Lexicon.
78 Stephanus 1550 NT.
79 Strong’s Online.
80 Stephanus 1550 NT; Friberg Lexicon.
81 Strong’s Online; Friberg Lexicon.
82 Ibid.
83 Strong’s Online.
84 https://www.ntgreek.org/learn_nt_greek/subj-negation.htm.
85 Strong’s Online.
86 Ibid.
87 Stephanus 1550 NT.
88 Strong’s Online.
89 Richard Bennett, “The Adulation of Man in the Purpose Driven Life.”
90 Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life, p. 34.
91 Bennett.
92 Friberg Lexicon.
93 Stephanus 1550 NT.
94 https://www.ntgreek.org/learn_nt_greek/subj-purpose.htm.
95 Harold’s name is pronounced Ock-in-gay (http://www.gordonconwell.edu/resources/Ockenga.cfm).
96 David Wilkinson, Christian Eschatology and the Physical Universe, p. 173.
97 Strong’s Online.
98 Ibid.
99 Stephanus 1550 NT.
100 Ibid.
101 Ibid.
102 Ibid.
103 Vine’s, “To Inherit.”
104 Strong’s Online; Theological Wordbook of the OT, #1460; BDB.
105 Stephanus 1550 NT; Liddell-Scott Greek Lexicon.
106 http://www.reformedspokane.org/Doctrine_pages/Calvinism%20%26%20Sovereign%20Grace/books_folder/Saved%20By%20Grace/Saved_By_Grace3.html
107 Friberg Lexicon.
108 Friberg Lexicon; Stephanus 1550 NT.
109 Stephanus 1550 NT.
110 http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/aprilweb-only/12.0.html
111 Agnieszka Tennant, “How the Pope Turned Me into an Evangelical,” http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct /2005/aprilweb-only/12.0.html
112 Ibid.
113 Stephanus 1550 NT.
114 Ibid.
115 Strong’s Online.
116 Friberg Lexicon; Strong’s Online; Gingrich Lexicon.
117 Gingrich Lexicon.
118 Strong’s Online.
119 Ibid.
120 Stephanus 1550 NT.
121 Ibid.
122 Strong’s Online.
123 Webster’s 1828 Dictionary, “church.”
124 Strong’s Online.
125 Stephanus 1550 NT.
126 Stephanus 1550 NT; Friberg Lexicon.