Blueprints for the Church: Ephesians 1:15-23

Notes:

NIB: “Clearly the apostle wants his readers to appropriate more fully every spiritual blessing’ that has graciously been given to them in Christ.” 126

NIB: “Various designations of authority are specified in order to stress Christ’s supremacy: all rule and authority, power and dominion. Whatever levels of power there are in the universe, all are subordinate to him.” 137

Paul wants them to “better appropriate” the blessings we have in Christ.

1. Primary request: God will give his revealing Spirit so They will know God better

17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened

NIV: “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened…

Paul’s intent is for people to understand what they got themselves into by believing in Jesus!

17: That God of Lord Jesus Christ, and “THE FATHER WHO SHOWS HIS GLORY (in Christ?)” give you Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him.

v. 18: “having the eyes of your hearts enlightened”=inner eyes.

Ephesians 4:18-24:  They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

What a lovely prayer!

Can’t know God without this revelation

Can’t know God without the Holy Spirit’s revelation

God chooses us, predestines us, adopts us.

The Spirit seals us and serves as our downpayment.

The Holy Sprit causes us to PRAISE.

Now, God gives the Spirit to reveal knowledge about himself.

NOW, the Holy Spirit is the one who REVEALS to us these things so we may come to know God!

Calvin: “The words the apostle uses here are so many thunderclaps and lightnings, to beat down and subdue all the pride of man.”

Paul’s Prayer for Ephesians is the same prayer I have for you!

I want you to grow in knowledge of God!

Has your inner eyes gone dim?

TRANSITION:

What’s the content of this knowledge, like what does Paul want them to know?

2. To know God Better

a. To know the hope of God’s calling on your life (1:18a)

Snodgrass: “In effect Paul prays they will know the significance of God’s choosing them…The focus here is not on the fact of God’s choosing, but on the outcome, the consummation of God’s plan in eternity. Paul wants believers to know that God’s call makes a radical—and positive—change in what the future holds for them.”

Without Hope: A common 1st Century epitaph read, “I was not, I was, I am not, I don’t care.”

Hope: “The Hope to which he has called you.” Hope of HIS calling. “God’s calling finds its origin in the choice of his peoplein Christ before the world’s foundation and becomes effective in their lives, as it did in the case of the readers, through the preaching of the gospel. Paul prays that his readers might grasp ore fully the hope into which God has brought them by his call, that hope which is held out in the gospel.” O’Brien.

b. To know the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints (1:18b)

Riches of his glorious inheritance (HIS inheritance).

Snodgrass: “Paul points to the tremendous glory that is present when God inherits the people he has set apart for himself. It is the Father’s inheritance that Paul refers to, not that of believers.”

Snodgrass: The revelation of who God really is and enjoyment of him will take place when God inherits his own people. His glory will then be made manifest.”

“the wealth of the glory of his inheritance.”

“HIS” Inheritance

YOU are God’s INHERITANCE!

GLORIOUS inheritance.

He views us as his beloved! In the Beloved.

Believers=signed and sealed by the Holy Spirit. Cash in the downpayment!

c. To know his incomparably great power (1:19)

O’Brien: “Clinton Arnold has claimed, some were converted out of a background of magic, the Artemis cult, or astrological beliefs. He believes Ephesians was ‘written to a group of churches in western Asia Minor which needed help in developing a Christian perspective on the “powers” and encouragement in their ongoing struggles with these pernicious spirit-forces’, and has shown that several of the particularly rare terms in this petition appear in the magical papyri and inscriptions from Ephesus.”

Power=Central to this Letter. WHO HAS THE POWER!?

“according to the operation of the strength of his might”

v. 19: Immeasurable greatness of his power…

v. 19: 4 different words for power. Snodgrass: “Paul desires that believers will know this great power is available for them.”

Power:

Resurrection: Resurrection from the dead (1:20a)

Snodgrass: Gr. “from the dead ones”= “The point is not that Christ was raised from a state of death, but that he was raised out from the dead ones. This is an important difference, for it suggests that his resurrection was not viewed as an isolated event, but as the first stage in the future resurrection. His resurrection is an inauguration of the final resurrection.”

Snodgrass: “Life’s center of gravity is not earthly life; it is in the heavenly realm with Christ and God. As the Exalted One, Christ is Lord, and his exaltation is determinative for life and for the church.”

Snodgrass: “God’s power does not remove us from persecution, danger, difficulty, and death, but makes us more than conquerors in all such things. This is not a power to work magic and escape difficulty, but a power to live in an evil world. This power is for godly living. Much of the letter will address these issues and the change that God produces in his people. This is where application of the discussion of power must focus.”

Reign:

Exultation to God’s right hand and above every ruler of force (1:20b-22a)

“In the heavenly realms” here points to Christ’s presence with God and to the larger reality of life with God.

v. 21: “FAR above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.”

“Stacking terms.”

Difficult to understand, but certainly spiritual being seem to be the emphasis? “Whatever powers exist—real or imaginary, human or nonhuman—they are all subject to Christ. In fact, the New Testament shows little interest in the powers other than to say they have been defeated, as a variety of texts affirms.” Snodgrass.

O’Brien: “All things are subject to Christ’s present rule (1:22, 23), and this includes specifically the principalities and authorities over whom Christ is exalted in the heavenly realm. There seems to be no doubt that such spiritual powers can and do work through earthly structures; but to identify them with the structures is reductionistic.”

Snodgrass: “The powers are not in control. He is. The powers are not equal combatants on the stage of life. They are subject, and the only one in control is Jesus Christ.”

Names are added: Covers the gambit and future names.

Snodgrass: “Jesus main goal was to show their subjection and defeat, as if to say, “Whatever is there has been defeated by and is under Christ’s control.”

Christ as head of all things for the church, his body (22b)

Snodgrass: “Christ is head of all things for the benefit of the church. “Whereas Paul’s other letters normally use ‘church’ to refer to an individual congregation, all occurrences in Ephesians are universal in scope.”

The fullness filling all things (1:23b)

Snodgrass on “fullness”: “The Old Testament provides the proper background for understanding “fullness.” God’s presence, his glory later referred to as his Shekinah, filled the tabernacle and temple, and the Spirit of God and the wisdom of God filled individuals. “Fullness,” in other words, refers to God’s making his presence and power felt. Whereas in the Old Testament he filled the temple, now he fills Christ, and Christ in turn fills his own so that the church partakes of the divine fullness. The focus is on the gift of God’s own being in revelation and salvation. Given this Old Testament background and the other uses of “fullness” in Ephesians and Colossians, it seems unlikely that “fullness” refers to the church (options 1 and 2). Understanding the term in that way would give the church an elevated status that it has in no other letter (even though Ephesians does have an exalted view of the church; cf. 3:21). “Fullness” instead refers to Christ (option 3), and as C. F. D. Moule suggested, the phrase “which is his body” in 1:23a is merely understood as a parenthetical comment about the church. In 1:19–23 God is the prime actor. He raised and exalted Christ, subjected all things to him, and gave him as head to the church. Accordingly, 1:23b is further description of Christ and his relation to God. He is the fullness of God, who fills all things. Christ is the place where God’s presence, power, and salvation are known, and the church draws from this fullness (see also 4:15–16).”

“Local gatherings, whether in a congregation or a house-church, are earthly manifestations of that heavenly gathering around the risen Christ (cf. Heb. 10:25). Therefore, here as elsewhere in Ephesians (e.g., 3:10), the apostle also has in mind local congregations of Christians, in which Jews and Gentiles are fellow-members of the body of Christ and concrete expressions of this heavenly entity.” O’Brien

“the fullness of him who fills all in all”=most difficult to interpret in Ephesians.

Old Testament “presence” of God

“‘[the church, which is Christ’s body], the fulness of him [i.e., Christ] who fills all things in every way’. God has given Christ as head over all things for the church. His supremacy over the cosmos is seen to be for the benefit of his people.” O’Brien

ulness:

Option #1: Descriptor not of the church but of Christ

‘… the church, which is the body of him who is the fullness of him who fills all in all’.

ACTIVE:

“the fullness of him who fills all in all.”

Fullness=Active or passive

Active= “That which fills” “contents of something”

Stott

Contents in a bowl

“Church fills or completes Christ”

Bruce “Thus, the church is ‘the complement of Christ who is the head’ (AG), ‘just as the body is the necessary complement of the head in order to make up a complete man.”

John Calvin: “By this word “fullness” he means that our Lord Jesus Christ and even God his Father account themselves imperfect, unless we are joined to him … as if a father should say, My house seems empty to me when I do not see my child in it. A husband will say, I seem to be only half a man when my wife is not with me. After the same manner God says that he does not consider himself full and perfect, except by gathering us to himself and by making us all one with himself.”

William Hendriksen writes of Christ: ‘As bridegroom he is incomplete without the bride; as vine he cannot be thought of without the branches; as shepherd he is not seen without his sheep; and so also as head he finds his full expression in his body, the church.’

“‘In some mysterious sense the church is that without which the Christ is not complete, but with which he is or will be complete. That is to say, he (sc. Paul) looks upon the Christ as in a sense waiting for completeness, and destined in the purpose of God to find completeness in the church.’ So he paraphrases: ‘The Head finds completeness in the Body: the Church is the completion of the Christ: for the Christ is being all in all fulfilled, is moving towards a completeness absolute and all-inclusive.’”

PASSIVE:

Passive= “that which is filled”

the church is ‘that which fills Christ who is being filled by it’.

Stott: “The church is the fullness of Christ not because it fills him, but because he fills it.”

Reasons:

“Nowhere else in Scripture is the church explicitly said to ‘fill’ or ‘complete’ Christ, whereas constantly Christ is said to indwell and fill his church… As his glory filled the Jerusalem temple, so today Jesus Christ who is the glory of God fills the church by his Spirit.” Stott

Emphasis is Lordship over all things. “A more appropriate conclusion woudl surely be to stress how this supreme Christ fills his church, as he also fills the universe.” Stott

Body and fullness serve as “successive descriptors of the church.”

Irony of this passage:

All about knowing, but the more we know, the more mysterious this all becomes! This is ultimately BEYOND knowledge!

Stott:

Paul’s desire is to have a thorough knowledge of God’s call, inheritance, and power (especially power!)

Snodgrass: “Unfortunately, much of modern Christianity is guilty of a drippy sentimentality, or worse, of sensationalism. With the latter, preachers sound more like religious professional wrestlers hyping an audience.”

Snodgrass: “The church’s confidence ought not, however, be misunderstood as triumphalism—the sin of overemphasizing “victory” so that sin, difficulty, and pain are not acknowledged and dealt with. Triumphalism in its arrogance forgets the cross and God’s identification with the pain of the world.”

Snodgrass: “Relational Power—power that is known because of being bound to the one in whom power resides.”

Not works, second blessing, power over the demonic, or astrology…

Snodgrass: “Its purpose is that people may focus on Christ, rejoice, and live confidently. To focus on the demonic is to lose focus on Christ—precisely what happens in Frank Peretti’s novels. Such a focus is out of bounds, as are Walter Wink’s suggestions of talking to the demonic. Evil is real, and as far as we can tell, so are spiritual beings, but they are not mentioned in this passage because they are a threat or should be a cause of concern. Instead, they are defeated and we need not worry.”

NOT power to exercise, but a power to revel in.

John Stott puts it aptly: ‘What Paul does in Eph. 1, and therefore encourages us to copy, is both to keep praising God that in Christ all spiritual blessings are ours and to keep praying that we may know the fullness of what he has given us’.