God's Mysterious Will

God gives you the desires of your heart, so go do whatever you desire to do as long as you are loving God and loving your neighbor. This is what John Calvin argued, but we couldn’t do that because it make us a Calvinist, who cares if it made sense.

Would it not be great to know God’s will? This passage tells us an aspect of God’s will and the work He is doing to accomplish His will!

Historical Context: Paul writes to a group of believers who are first generation believers. They did not have a culture of being churched.

• Paul writes a lengthy praise for God’s work.

• Verses 3-6 focus on God the Father and His work. Paul identified God’s work as:

• Choosing the believers. The choice involves knowing all the options, is not with ill intent towards those not chosen, the chosen have no legal right or demand on God’s choice, He was free to choose.

We are chosen in “love” (αγαπη) which is true that the word has an aspect of sacrificial love as in John 3:16. But part of the idea of this word for love is the free choice to love.

There is not a legal demand to love: legally you cannot be apathetic towards you children because if you are you will go to prison and they will be put in foster care.

There is not a covenant demand like when people get married they promise love.

God has free choice to love, and He did not have to love.

• Adopting them as sons – we did not go into what type of legal challenges God had to go through to be able to do this transaction. We mentioned it, but we will look at this aspect in more detail later on, because Paul develops this more. But at least two things are important to note in the adoption of the believer:

1. The person did not belong to God before the adoption. While it is true that God is God over everyone and everything. Yet, as an adopted children, there is a special relationship that those who are not adopted do not have.

2. Being adopted frees the adoptee from the previous relationship, and brings new responsibilities. This will be explored in detail later on. The first three chapters will deal with the change of relationship and the last three chapters will articulate the new responsibilities.

Proposition: Praise God because Christ redeemed us, and freed us at an immeasurable cost.

God gave us wisdom to understand His eschatological dispensation of Christ’s lordship.

I. Christ Redeemed Us Through His Death v. 7

Eph. 1:7 Paul has been writing in the past tense. Paul told the Ephesians that:

God chose them

God predestined them – Sometimes people debate about this as if how you understand this word actually changes what God did in eternity past!

God freely bestowed grace on them.

Paul switches from the past tense to present tense.

“We have” (εχομεν Pres. Act. Indc. 1st Pl.) – “1. act. a. trans. to have, possess” (The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, s.v. “εχω,” 886). Paul addressed the believers in praise to God because they had or were in possession of something.

“redemption” (απολυτρωσιν Acc. Fem. Sg.) – “‘buying back’ a slave or captive, i.e. ‘making free’ by payment of a ransom” 2. release from a captive condition, release, redemption, deliverance (BDAG, s.v. “ἀπολύτρωσις,” 117). The believers have this redemption. But to think about being bought it brings several questions that the church over the years have tried to answer:

1. Who was bought? The verb is a 1st plural – “we.” This is the safest answer to give, but we might wonder who the “we” included” and there are three main groups that “we” can represent:

The ones chosen and predestinated – Those who have been purchased are only those that have been chosen and predestinated for adoption. An argument in favor that usually appears is that God would not waste one drop of Christ’s blood on someone not chosen or predestinated.

The whole world – universalism. The “we” would be all humanity, because again God would not waste Christ’s blood so therefore everyone gets saved. Some of us know we are saved, while others do not realize they are saved.

The whole world – unlimited atonement. The “we” contextually applies to a church of believers. But the extent of the purchase was for the whole world. Peter wrote about false teachers and he says that they denied the one who “bought” (αγοραζω Aor. Act. Part.) them (2 Pet. 2:1).

The extent of the purchase was “according to wealth of His grace” (κατα το πλουτος της χαριτος αυτου) (Eph. 1:7).

How much wealth of grace does God have?

While extent of the purchase includes everyone, we will see that not all are saved. Paul purpose here is just to address those who are saved to remind them that they have been redeemed!

What about Christ’s blood misspelt? It would only be misspelt if God’s ultimate purpose in Christ’s death were salvific. But it isn’t!

Salvation is ultimately doxological (Eph. 1:6, 12, 13). We could imagine a counter-factual where Christ died, and nobody accepted Christ as their Savior. The original challenge to God was not if He could save, but was a question of His benevolence. Adam and Eve thought that God was holding out something good for them.

2. What was the payment? – redemption is “through” (δια) Jesus’ blood. Paul is using a synecdoche (sinécdoque) to reference Christ’s death on the cross as the payment.

This causes some problems for some because they ask at least two questions:

Does this not make God as the divine child abuser? – Jesus is not the helpless child under the tutelage of an abusive Father. Rather, Christ is involved with the Father in the whole process of salvation before the foundation of the world. Christ is co-equal with the Father. The Son took on human form was obedient to the Father – Jesus chose this (Phil. 2:5-11).

How does Christ’s blood cleanse a person of their sins? – God told Adam that the day he eat from the tree of good and evil, he would die. Death can mean not have life, but it can also mean separation. Adam was separated from God, and dying in that condition would send him all eternity separated from God. Christ took the place of the sinner, and took the punishment for sin, by dying. In the OT, the blood of animals would cover the sins of the ofender. But Christ’s blood washes all the sins away because He imputes His righteousness to the person who believes (Rom. 5:17, 19; 2 Cor. 5:21)

3. Who was paid? We have some options:

Satan – many believed that Satan was paid to rescue the sinner. But this has some problems, mainly God does not owe Satan. It does not make sense that He would pay.

Especially since the verse says “the pardon/forgiveness of transgression” (παραπτωματων Gen. N. Pl. – “a violation of moral standards, offense, wrongdoing, sin” (BDAG, s.v. “παράπτωμα,” 770).

The purchasing is for a pardon of sin, why would Christ pay Satan for pardoning sin. Was Satan the offended party in our sin?

Moral example to us – No body was paid, we just needed an example to live by, and Christ became that example of self-sacrifice that should be played out in the church, family, and for society. Those who emphasize God’s love over God’s holiness and justice like this one, but this one has so many problems. Mainly, the problem is not that we offend each other, the problem is that we have offended God.

God – the redemption freed the people from God’s condemnation. God was the offended party, we are the offenders. The redemption that we received bought us out of the slave market of sin and of death! God wrath was propitiated (2 John 2:2)

The redemption happens “through” “The preposition διά expresses means” and “The διά defines more precisely how redemption was accomplished” (Harold W. Hoehner, Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary, Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), 207). The redemption was accomplished through Jesus dying on the cross.

What did it accomplish? Pardon for our sins.

“Pardon” (αφεσιν Acc. Fem. Sg.) –“2. the act of freeing from an obligation, guilt, or punishment, pardon, cancellation” (BDAG, s.v. “ἄφεσις,” 155). Forgiveness is the effect caused by being redeemed.

“transgressions” (παραπτωματων Gen. N. Pl.) “a violation of moral standards, offense, wrongdoing, sin” (BDAG, s.v. “παράπτωμα,” 770). These are not accidents “Rather they denote a conscious and willful act against God’s holiness and righteousness. Human beings are held responsible for these acts of treachery against God and sin needs to be punished. The use of the plural indicates the acts of sin or violence against God.” (Harold W. Hoehner, Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary, Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), 208).

Rom. 6:1 Paul used “sin” (αμαρτια) singular to refer that the believer is dead to the sin nature.

Eph. 1:7 “transgressions” is plural and is not referencing the sin nature but is referencing the plurality of sins or the plurality of violations of God’s moral standard.

How was their sins pardoned?

“according to” (κατα Acc.) – “in accordance with, corresponding to” (Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: an Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament, Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 377.) GE states “with an idea of conformity: in accordance with, according to” (The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, s.v. “κατα” 1042).

“wealth” (πλουτος Acc.) – “2. plentiful supply of something, a wealth, abundance” (BDAG, s.v. “πλοῦτος,” 832.)

“of His grace” (της χαριτος αυτου) The pronoun refers to God and it is possessive meaning that the grace belongs to God, it is God’s grace. Grace is undeserved favor.

The sins were not pardoned because you would amount to something in the future.

Your sins were not pardoned because one day you would deserve it

Your sins were pardoned according to God’s grace!

We are still in the praise that Paul is giving to God for His great work in salvation. I want to apply just three things from this verse:

A. Property of Christ!

Paul does not go into what we are redeemed out of, he saves that for later. So I am going to save it for later.

But he does say who has purchased us: Christ! What implications are there for being purchased?

We do not belong to ourselves! There are two big pulls:

Think and Act like the Populist – The collective group decides justice, right and wrong, ethics, etc. The individual just is supposed to repeat what the collective has determined!

Think and Act as Autonomous Individual – The individual is exalted as a thinking and self determining individual.

Neither of these pulls are Scriptural. The Bible does present that you are in a community, the church, if you are saved, but does not call you to follow the collective. Nor are you an autonomous individual.

You have been purchased – you know what it means when you purchase something. It means you own it.

Which means that your thinking needs to reflect the purchaser. LOOK TO CHRIST!

OT of following God – There are many examples in the OT of individuals following God over the group, i.e. Joseph with Potifer’s wife, Daniel praying against the kings edict,

Joshua 24:14-28 Joshua told Israel to decide who they were going to serve, but he and his house was going to serve God (v. 15). Joshua did not care what the everyone else did, he was going to follow God.

Joshua 1:6-9 God tells Joshua to focus on obeying Him, not to turn either left or right, but obey every word of the Law of God! Joshua was not supposed to be a free autonomous thinker. He was supposed to obey God.

B. Freed from Sin!

You have been freed or released from your transgressions. Freedom is not mean you can do what ever you want.

You have been freed from your transgressions has two ideas:

The consequence of the transgression, you have been released! – Bethesda Baptist Church in Puerto Ordaz, VE had a big school bus that they were trying to jump start. They wanted to push it down the driveway and pop the clutch. The only problem was that the bus had air-brakes that get filled up when the engine is running! They pushed the bus down the driveway and the bus started ran into the neighbor’s fence! The neighbor was upset, he did not forgive them for their transgression. We do not tend to forgive. But God has forgiven us! PRAISE THE LORD!!!!

You no longer need to sin – I get by the fact that you have been redeemed by His blood. How powerful is Christ’s blood? Can break the hold sin in your life? This will be developed more in the rest of the Epistle, but please know that the Blood of Christ is powerful to save you of your sins and to currently save you of your sins – meaning you do not have to sin.

C. Κατα “According” not “Out of”

The idea that Paul is referencing here is that we are not saved “out of” God’s great wealth of grace.

We are saved “according” to God’s grace. Hoehner wrote “It took the wealth of God’s grace to redeem and forgive the sinner. The cost of sin was the supreme sacrifice of God’s Son Jesus Christ.” (Harold W. Hoehner, Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary, Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), 209).

What did it cost? It cost God’s Beloved!

How do you treat things that are costly? To be a candidate for a heart transplant you cannot use alcohol or drugs and the assessment team will determine the candidate’s “Ability to stick to the treatment plan before and after transplant” (https://www.upmc.com/services/transplant/heart/candidates)

Why such a harsh criteria? Because available hearts are costly to come by.

Your salvation cost must more than a heart! I could go into the fact that this should cause us to live differently, but that is not point contextually.

The contextual point is to praise God for such a costly gift! PRAISE GOD, PRAISE GOD, PRAISE GOD!!!

II. God Lavished Wisdom and Insight of His Will vs. 8-9

Eph. 1:8 Paul then writes about.

III. God Providentially and Sovereignly Works His Plan: Christ Lord over All v. 10

Eph. 1:10 Then some more

We have to ask ourselves:

What is a dispensation

Is this dispensation present (growing like an acorn), present and future (Spiritual now; Physical not yet), or future (millennial reign of Christ) – while you might think this is a pointless exercise how we answer the question will determine how we live today!

Conclusion

Proposition: Praise God because Christ redeemed us, and freed us at an immeasurable cost.

and God gave us wisdom to understand His eschatological dispensation of Christ’s lordship.

Summary

I. Christ Redeemed us through His death v. 7

II. God lavished wisdom and insight of His will vs. 8-9

III. God providentially and sovereignly works His plan: Christ Lord over all v. 10

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