Ephesians 1:1-14--Every Spiritual Blessing in Christ

Greeting​
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus:

2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Spiritual Blessings in Christ

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

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We move today from one of Paul's most "scolding" letters of rebuke (Galatians) to one of his most encouraging letters to the Ephesians.  Ephesus was not just a church pastored by Paul and his team, but the apostle John was also the pastor of the church at Ephesus for a long time and his epistles (that we've already studied) were also written to the church in Ephesus.  It is also the first of the seven churches to which the Lord Jesus Christ speaks in the book of the Revelation.  While they are not there yet in their history, let's look at that passage to see what Jesus has to say to them and to the Church today from Revelation 2:1-7.


Revelation 2:1-7
English Standard Version
To the Church in Ephesus​
2 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.

2 “‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. 3 I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. 6 Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’

So we will see a congregation of believers that started off great.  They had good works that were in line with repentance and they worked with patience and endurance.  They did not tolerate false teachers and false gospels (like what we just studied in the book of Galatians), and they suffered for the name of Christ without growing weary.

But Jesus tells them that they have "forgotten their first love."  He longs for the kind of relationship with them that they had originally--remember that our relationship with Jesus is like that of a couple who are betrothed to one another (a little bit stronger than "engaged"--we are sure we are going to get married and the date of the wedding has been set and the wedding guests have been invited, we're just waiting for the day to come).  Relationships like this can grow "stale" if we aren't careful to remember what it is that made us love the person in the first place and to always look at them with the same eyes that first laid eyes on them originally.  Jesus calls on them to repent (interesting because we usually associate that with sin that we need to turn away from) and turn back to being fully and totally in love with Him.

We may get some glimpse about what Jesus is talking about with the Nicolaitans here (another set of false teachers preaching a false gospel at that time), and Jesus promises that all who stay in Him and remain faithful to the end will be victorious (because He will be victorious) and He will give them the inheritance of eternal life (see the Tree of Life that was back in the Garden of Eden that's there in heaven, but there is no longer any Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?  There is no longer any possibility to sin and rebel against God!)

Aright, I promise we'll get back to the book of Revelation some day, but let's get back to the book of Ephesians now that we've set some context for some of the things we might want to look out for here (things they are doing well, and things that they need to watch out for).

This too is an epistle that is about the identity of the believer and who God has called us to be and made us in Christ and our purpose as Christians.   One of the refrains that we will see throughout the beginning of this epistles is "to the praise of His glory."  If you are familiar with catechisms, one of the first questions that is usually asked is "What is the chief purpose of man?" and that question is answered very much from this book of the Bible.  "The chief purposes of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 1).

We start by realizing that we already have received everything we need--every spiritual blessing--through Christ Jesus.  He chose us from before the beginning of the world and before the beginning of time (the doctrine of election that we'll study more closely in our Gospel Foundations study next week when we talk about Abraham and his family) and adopted us as sons and daughters.  This may not be a big deal to you, but to be an adopted son or daughter was a huge deal in that Roman culture.  If you were adopted you had every legal right that a blood-born child would have and your inheritance was secure--you were never in doubt that your inheritance would be minimized or taken away because you were a son or daughter by adoption.  In fact, it might have even been more secure than that of the blood-born sons and daughters who could be expelled from the family and lose their inheritance, but not so with the adopted sons and daughters--the contract that was made with them was eternal.

All this was done by Him and for Him as we recently studied in the book of Colossians last week in the Gospel Foundations course (and we'll get to studying the epistle soon as well).  This was the plan of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirt from before the beginning--to redeem a people for Himself (we saw that in the book of Job) so that He might receive all the glory and honor and praise.  In fact, we see that this is the "Revelation Song" that we sing in heaven--it is the Song of the Redeemed--it is this story that we love to tell and sing of not just in the here and now, but through all eternity--"See how He loved him" (what we just studied in the gospel of John in The Gospel Project regarding the death and resurrection of Lazarus).

It is by the Word of God (Jesus) and His actions in living and dying for us that He has revealed mystery of His will--the gospel, and that He who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it until the day of His glorious appearing.  (Philippians 1:6, which is actually going to be the next epistle that I plan on studying with you after Ephesians).

So what exactly are these blessings that we've received or inherited?  First and foremost that we were chosen to be adopted and to receive and believe the gospel of salvation and to have us transformed by it and sealed (like the engagement ring) for the day in which we will see Him face-to-face and the wedding will take place--All of this for the praise of His glory and for His great name!  The very Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit is both our security and assurance of the promise (the engagement ring) and a gift to us--though like the ring it is a gift that is a symbol of the value that God sees in us and what value we see in Him, because if we value the relationship, we would never dream of selling the engagement ring for any sum of money, no matter how valuable it is and the purpose of that sign of the covenant is to show and tell the whole world that you belong to Him and He belongs to you and the great price that He paid--"See how He loved him!"