Ephesians 1

Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus is a succinct statement of a well-formed and sincere faith. The first three chapters are about Christian thinking, and the last three are about Christian living. This structure (renewed thinking first and renewed living flowing from it), is very instructive to the church in every age. We may want our lives to be fixed right now. We may want to get right into the practical matters of obedient living, but we will not have much success at reforming our behavior unless we first allow our minds to be renewed with thoughts about God, and particularly about our new position before Him in His Son Jesus Christ.

After one of his familiar introductions where He speaks of His apostolic office according to the will of God and about their station as those who are called out of the world around them to be the “saints” or “holy ones,” the faithful in Christ Jesus who have become recipients of such powerful grace and peace from the Father and the Son, the apostle immediately speaks in the language of one who must praise God. He is blessing God the Father who has blessed us so richly in Christ. Our union with Christ is so real to Paul that He speaks about us as already being in the heavenly places in our Messiah. There we lack nothing, because Christ lacks nothing. This is fundamental to healthy thinking. Our union with Christ and our participation in all kinds of heavenly blessings is a perfect place for us to start.

He then continues with some wonderfully clear statements about God’s electing love for His children. It is God who chose us in Christ from before the foundation of the world. He predestined us for inclusion into His family in Christ. He has blessed us in His beloved Son. We have been redeemed by the blood of that Son. Over and over again Paul emphasizes two things, the glory of God in His sovereign love for us, and that all of the good things that we have been given have come to us because we are in Christ. To be in Christ is to have every reason for spiritual happiness. Our sins are forgiven. We have the riches of God’s gifts lavished upon us. His will for us has now been revealed according to His great eternal purpose.

There is no one better than God. That is why His settled eternal purpose is of the utmost importance. It is amazing that we have a place in that eternal purpose. This plan of God is stated in the most concise and glorious words, “to unite all things in him (Christ), things in heaven and things on earth.” We are absolutely certain that the plan of God will be accomplished, because we are told that God works all things according to the counsel of his will. Explicitly included in that list of “all things” is the matter of loving us and choosing us before the creation of the world to have the inheritance of the children of God. This inheritance must be what was earlier stated concerning the Lord’s eternal purpose, “all things” in that kingdom where everything, all of the renewed heaven and earth, is perfectly united in the only One who could bring back together the world of blessing that has been lost ever since the day when man first sinned against God. Only in Christ can the place of eternal blessing come together, and you and I have our name on the deed of that land as those who are in Him who died for our sins and is the eternal Son of God.

This inheritance is perfectly secure in our Lord’s death and resurrection. In fact, it is so secure, that we already have a generous slice of heaven granted to us in none other than the promised Holy Spirit of God Almighty, with whom we were sealed when we heard and believed the good news of our salvation in Christ. The apostles and the believing Jews in Judea were the first to hold fast to the confident expectation that has now come to millions of believing Jews and Gentiles over many centuries. All over the world people hear of Christ and believe in Him to the glory of God.

The apostle was regularly giving thanks to God for this great salvation which had touched the church in Ephesus. The work of the Lord in them was expressed beautifully in their open proclamation of faith in the Lord Jesus and their actions of love for one another in the church. But God had more for them. The apostle was also regularly asking God for a further good work of the Holy Spirit for the Ephesian church. Specifically, he was requesting that they would be given a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ. It is by the Holy Spirit that Paul says they would come to know in Christ three things: 1. the hope that is ours as those who have a part in the future (and present) eternal kingdom of God, 2. that God considers US, in our perfected state in glory, to be a rich inheritance for HIM, and 3. that the power of God to bring about the perfect resurrection kingdom is unstoppable. These things we can only know by the Holy Spirit, and Paul is asking for this blessing of heavenly knowledge for the church.

Consider the greatest proof of our future hope, the greatest proof of God’s determination to bless redeemed mankind, and the greatest proof that God is able to bring about His full eternal purpose. This greatest proof has come to us in the resurrection of one Man from the dead. The Man who redeemed us with His death has proven that God has life for us in His life. As Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father as the Head of the church, we shall surely experience the fullness of our destiny as His body. He is our everything in the eternal kingdom, for we shall be the fullness of Him who will fill all in all. This is the kind of spiritual thinking that we need the most, and it is the kind of thinking that could really make a difference in how we live.