Ephesians 1:3-14
Lesson Focus From before the foundation of the world, God’s plan has always been to gather all of creation back to himself through the loving power of Christ.
Lesson Outcomes Through this lesson, students should:
Understand that God’s will for creation has always been that all should rest with God forever.
Understand that Jesus was always the means through which the world will live eternally with God.
Understand that we are to live holy and blameless lives before God in love as a result of our election.
Catching Up… There has been much debate over both the authorship of this epistle and its intended recipients. For our purposes, we will refer to the author of this letter as the Apostle Paul. While the letter may not have initially been written specifically for the church at Ephesus, the faithful there would likely have heard it read. As was the case in antiquity, particularly among the growing group of Christ-followers, it was common for a letter written to one group to be read to multiple gatherings. Letters would have been circulated from community to community in hopes that each church would be mutually edified.
Unlike Paul’s correspondences to the Corinthian church, there seem to be no specific pastoral issues about which Paul writes. Instead, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is a general plea for these believers to live in a unified, Christ-like way. If there were one dominant theme throughout this letter, it would be that of unity. God is one. We are one with Christ. We should be one with another. One. Unity has been God’s plan for creation from before the very beginning.
Berakhah After a short greeting in verses 1-2, Paul launches into the body of the letter. Though at this point, we are still in the introduction. This week’s focus, verses 3-14, is one long sentence in the original Greek that seeks solely to bestow glory and honor on God because of God’s graciousness toward creation. It is almost a song, and some have supposed that it is. This one-sentence blessing or thanksgiving (known as a berakhah in Hebrew) was not uncommon in Old Testament literature, specifically in the psalms (Bruce, 252). For his part, Paul has taken the berakhah and made it his own.
Paul’s berakhah begins with an outpouring of blessing on God for the way that God has blessed us through Jesus. There is a specific logic to Paul’s argument even here in this opening blessing. It is that Christ forms the center of any understanding of what God’s plan has been from the beginning. In this one sentence, Paul uses the phrase “in Christ/him” or “through Christ/him” nine times. Indeed, all the blessings that we enjoy, spiritual or not, come to us from God through Jesus.
He Chose… In verse 4, Paul begins to lay out for us in specific terms why it is that God through Christ should be blessed. It’s here that we run into another central theme of this opening blessing, election, or being chosen.
Those of a Wesleyan mindset might bristle a bit at the language of election or predestination. After all, our faith tradition has always championed the idea that God’s prevenient grace calls all people back to God and that those who respond will enjoy salvation and a renewed relationship with God.
Paul’s words here do not challenge that belief, even though some may erroneously use it that way. The language of the text is all plural, God “chose us in Christ…” Rather, the point of the passage, as we will see in a bit, is that God has also chosen the Gentiles to be recipients of “every spiritual blessing.” While it is true that within Israel, there was an understanding that God had chosen them as a nation over and against others, Paul is actively working against this exclusivist mindset. Keep in mind, most of Paul’s missionary activity has been to the Gentiles.
Paul’s startling statement in verse 4 is that God, in Christ, chose us before the foundation of the world. This makes any talk of salvation always contingent upon God’s initiative. In other words, we had received salvation because God chose us (and by we Paul means all of creation) before the world was ever made. One commentator says it like this, “It is significant that the language of election before the foundation of the world occurs here in the context of thanksgiving (cf. also 1 Thess 1:4; 2:13). It is part of an expression of gratitude for God’s inexplicable grace, not a logical deduction about the destiny of individuals based on the immutability of God’s decrees.” (Lincoln, 24).
If we aren’t careful, we might end up on the other end of the spectrum and claim that if God chose all of us for salvation, then it matters not how we might live. The end of verse four completely rules that out.
Before the foundation of the world, we were chosen “to be holy and blameless before him in love.” Salvation is always a free gift, but it always requires a conscious turning back toward God. Paul is clear; our turning toward holiness and blamelessness is mediated through Christ and in love. Holiness is God’s choice for all of creation since before the beginning of the world.
As we move toward verse 5, it is fair to say that we can continue to have the phrase “before the foundation of the world” in the back of our minds. God destined us for adoption as children before the foundation of the world. Paul emphasizes that God adopts us by taking us unto his family. Even though we were once “sons of disobedience” and “children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:2, 3), God has freely chosen us, and this choosing happens through the preexistent Son, Jesus Christ. (Lincoln, 25). We are God’s children because God was pleased to have it be that way. This is the Good News, pure and simple. The only appropriate response to the fact that God has chosen us, even when we were actively God’s enemies, is unbridled praise, thanksgiving, and blessing.
As if our choosing was not enough of a reason to enter into thanksgiving, Paul reminds us that our redemption, our choosing, comes through the blood of Christ.
If there is “power in the blood,” it is because of the self-sacrificial, self-emptying nature of Christ who freely gave himself up on our behalf. Not only did God, through Christ, choose all of us before the foundation of the world, but God through Christ, actively and decisively makes it so. We are God’s children, not just in name, but through Christ’s deed as well.
The Fullness of Time… As we move into verse 9, we are told that God has made known to us the “mystery of his will.” Just what is the mystery?
First, it is not some secret knowledge that will only be imparted to us once we have accomplished some higher spiritual level or some greater discipline or faithfulness. In this context, the mystery is what God chooses to reveal to us because God has made us God’s children. Again, the initiative is always with God. We respond with praise and with faithful movement toward holiness.
The mystery that God, through Christ, has revealed to us is God’s plans for the fullness of time or the time when all things will return to the way that they should be. The second half of verse 10 states that God will “gather up all things in [Christ].” The sense here is that all that is will be unified in the direction of a common goal. That common goal is a oneness with God through Christ and a oneness with each other.
The presupposition behind this statement is that the world and all that is in it has been broken apart and, in a sense, disintegrated because of sin. The mystery revealed to us is that God, by means of Jesus, is bringing all those formerly broken things back together (Lincoln, 33).
Our inheritance, indeed our heritage, is that we now live as those who Christ has adopted. This is our hope, too, as we now wait (active waiting, of course!) for the fullness of time when all things will be gathered together. Our hope is not that the world is dissolved or destroyed and that we get to go to heaven when we die. Our hope is that God, through Christ, restores all things. This hope propels us to offer praise and thanksgiving to God.
In verse 13, Paul makes one final statement, you and I were marked with a seal of the promised Holy Spirit. The “you also” of the beginning of the verse speaks now explicitly to those who are Gentile believers. The gift of God’s Spirit is not just for the Jews. It is for everyone. The inheritance of the hope of God’s restoration of all things is for everyone.
So What? This passage is challenging in that it is densely packed and moves quickly. It is also intensely theological with few practical statements. Yet, it provides a significant beginning place for this letter to the Ephesians. This beginning blessing does two things.
First, it rightly orientates us toward a posture of praise and thanksgiving. Our understanding of salvation or our subsequent growth in grace toward holiness can never be seen as something of our own doing. No, the initiative for any movement toward salvation rests solely with the God who called us to be his children before the foundation of the world.
Second, this one long sentence begins to help shape our understanding of what God is up to in our world. God is not out to destroy the world. No, it is God’s good pleasure to draw all things to himself in love through Christ.
The world as we now experience it is broken; it is disintegrated. But we know a mystery. It will not always be that way. God’s good pleasure is to gather up all those broken and disintegrated things and restore them to the unity in which they were intended to be in the first place.
As we move along in our study of this letter to the Ephesians, we will discover the unifying nature of God’s plans for the world. Before the foundation of the world, God, through Christ, created us to be one, one with him and one with each other. Now, God is calling us to be one once more.
Critical Discussion Questions:
How does this text reveal to us the nature and character of God/What is God doing in this text?
We find in this passage that before the foundation of the world, God has chosen us to be his sons and daughters. God’s character is loving and patient, willing to suffer even those who work against him. God is rich in mercy and willing to forgive.
We also find that God has revealed his choosing, not just of Israel, but of all people, to us as we seek to follow him. God is intently interested in bringing back together all that has been broken or separated. God, through Christ, is working to make us all one again.
What does holiness/salvation look like in this text?
As is always the case with the Apostle Paul, salvation is a free gift of God. If God has chosen us (all of us) to be his children since before the foundation of the world, then our salvation, and even our movement toward holiness, is never our initiative. We do not earn our salvation, and it comes out of the abundance of God’s grace and mercy. However, we are called to be holy and blameless before him in love. This movement is always our response to the salvation that God has given us.
How does an encounter with this story shape who we are and who we should become?
If God is working to bring all of us, and all of creation, back together in unity, then this should change how we view ourselves in light of those around us. As a church and in our daily lives, we should be hard at work, in response to the love and grace that God has given us, to help heal division and brokenness wherever we may find it.
Specific Discussion Questions: Read the text aloud. Then, read the text to yourself quietly. Read it slowly, as if you were very unfamiliar with the story.
What is the primary purpose of this section of Paul’s letter?
In verse 4, Paul says that we were chosen before the foundation of the world to be “holy and blameless before him in love.” What does it mean that we were chosen before the foundation of the world? Who does the choosing? Who gets chosen?
What does it mean to be “holy and blameless before him in love?”
Specifically, how do our redemption and forgiveness come about?
In verse 9, Paul says that God has made known to us a “mystery.” What is the mystery, and why would God make it known to us?
What is the “fullness of time?”
What does God intend to do in “the fullness of time?”
Paul believes that God is gathering all the broken things and helping to restore them to wholeness. If this is indeed true, and we believe that it is, then what does that mean for how you and I are to live our lives here and now?
If unity and restoration are God’s plan before the foundation of the world, then how can we help bring about unity and restoration here and now? Make a list of specific action items our church can do.
Works Cited: F. F. Bruce, The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1984).
Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians, vol. 42, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1990).