Throughout this Lent I have been studying Ephesians 1. I was drawn there not long ago to reflect upon the well known passage in verse 7 about our redemption being through Jesus’ blood, and this redemption is the forgiveness of sins. I let my eyes wander up and down the page, and in so doing my heart and mind raced with anticipation of what treasure might be found in this chapter.
I was not disappointed — God’s word never disappoints — but there was so much more there than I’d ever realized, and thus is the nature of the Bible. No matter how much you study it, there is always more. This more has a quality of being that which cannot be fully communicated, for Ephesians spoke to my soul.
What I want to do is cover it slowly in a few blog posts, but that is hard to do because vv 3-14 are famously one long sentence, about half the chapter, and it defies any logical attempt at organization. That hasn’t ever stopped theologians from trying, but it really is just one clause after another, attribute upon attribute stacked as logs and timber erected upon a giant bonfire set ablaze to the glory of the Triune God working in Christ for our benefit.
I have translated this from the Greek New Testament in two formats, one format is what might be called a ‘straight’ rendering that is formal. The other format is an attempt at vernacular, or ‘loose’ reading that tries to communicate in everyday language what I perceive the Blessed Apostle was teaching us. I will line these up together with each verse, the ‘straight’ rendering first, and then the ‘loose’ rendering behind it.
So, without any more delay, let us begin with verse 1.
Verse 1
From Paul, an apostle of Messiah Jesus due to God’s desire, to the saints in Ephesus, the faithful people in Messiah Jesus.
This letter is from Paul, who is an apostle of Messiah Jesus, and it is all because of God’s will. It is to the holy people in Ephesus, the faithful people in Messiah.
This opening is hotly debated among scholars. The issue is the ‘in Ephesus’ which doesn’t appear in all the earlier manuscripts. This has led some to speculate it was a circular kind of letter that was read aloud by one congregation and then passed on to others. The biggest defense for this view is that later (v. 15) he will talk about the Ephesians like he didn’t know them except by reputation, yet in the book of Acts he spent three years there. If this was a circular letter, that makes sense. To the contrary of this, very early on in church history it was accepted this letter was written to the Ephesian church, and there are other explanations for the apparent lack of knowledge in verse 15.
A note is needed here about ‘Messiah’ or ‘Christ’. I regularly choose to translate the Greek rather than transliterate it, which is what we do if we use the term Christ. Though more familiar to us, the word ‘Messiah’ , each time it is used, reminds us of the connection of Jesus to Israel and of the continuity of salvation to God’s people.
Toward the end of this verse there is a cadence that builds with the preposition, ‘in.’ The letter is sent to the holy ones ‘in Ephesus’, the faithful ‘in Messiah.’ These people are in two places at one time. Physically they are in Ephesus, that is where they live — a classic Greek city of the Roman Empire filled with idols, evil, and all manner of worldliness. These people are holy people in an unholy place. At the same time, though, they are also ‘in Messiah’. It is one of Paul’s favorite idioms to refer to those people who have placed their hope and trust in Jesus — again, more familiar to us as ‘in Christ’. There is more going on with the ‘in Messiah’ language than can be brought out here, but it is enough to point out now the holy people in Ephesus can only stay holy if they remain faithful in Messiah. His language is precise and meaningful here, these are not throwaway appellations. They were made holy by Messiah, staying faithful is up to us.
As we live in an age in which so many people who claim to be holy ones in Jesus seem to seek power, wealth, influence, and cruelty it is easy to identify with the difficulties of being faithful. If we are not mindful of faithfulness, we may end up as the Ephesian church eventually did, as Jesus warns them in his own letter food in Revelation 2, ‘I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love that you had at the first’ (Revelation 2:15).
Verse 2
Grace and peace to you from our Father God and our Lord Messiah Jesus.
May grace and peace be to you from our Father God and our Lord Messiah Jesus.
Grace and peace are beautiful things, especially the grace and peace which flows from God. However, we would be working the text too hard if we overplay this blessing, because even heathens in the ancient world opened their letters like this, with bestowals of grace and peace and such niceties. What makes this different is that the grace and the peace are derived in the Godhead rather than as some kind of unconnected hope that the recipients will be enjoying life.
Verse 3
The God and Father of our Lord Messiah Jesus be blessed, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in highest heaven through Messiah
Speak well of God, the Father of our Lord Messiah Jesus, for he has spoken well of us, with all the spiritually rich good Messiah words
Now we begin the long sentence of over two hundred words. The structure of this verse is not hard to handle, with a three-fold blessing. First, we bless God, second God has blessed us, and the blessings are located spiritually in heaven.
As you can see, my ‘loose’ translation plays with the word ‘blessed’, for I am trying to capture something of what I think is the intended feel. For Paul, ‘bless’ was verbal, something we actually do with our mouths. In this way, it is more akin to praise in the modern vernacular. I fear for us the word ‘bless’ and especially ‘blessed’ has lost most of its power. We don’t think of bless as something we do, we think of it as a state of being. I want to recover the action, so I chose to take the word back to its roots which is to ‘speak well’. We should speak well of God rather than blaspheme him, because he has spoken well of us insofar as he loved and forgave us. The vocabulary of blessing is a heavenly vocabulary taught to us by Messiah Jesus. If that feels a little mysterious and hard to get your mind around, well, get ready for a ride because so much of Ephesians 1 has that same mysterious mood to it. The Apostle is trying to describe some things here which, quite frankly, are indescribable and can only be experienced. Spiritual blessings, Messiah’s words, are among those mysterious.
Verse 4
inasmuch as he chose us, in him, to be saints, blameless in his sight, from the foundations of the world, in love
selected to be holy people, as if we were blameless in his sight, it was love ever since the foundation of the world
The ‘in love’ phrase, agape, comes as the last the last two words in the verse but I have to tell you it is hard to know what it should be attached to. It would be a legitimate move to put it first, ‘he chose us in love, in him . . . ‘ or it could be molded even to a ‘He lovingly chose us . . .’
The verb ‘chose’, or the cognate ‘elected’ is a strong word, and Paul employs it as a token of God’s care here. How a person views election will determine their understanding of what this verse means. If one takes it to mean a kind of divine plan of choosing some for salvation and choosing others for damnation which has no bearing on individual will or liberty, then this verse confirms God’s plan for salvation to only a select group of people, the chosen ones.
If, however, you take it to mean God chose Jesus as the means, the weight of ‘in him’ nestled alongside such terms as election, and that plan has been forever percolating, then the idea of election is not about excluding some and including others but rather election is what The Lord has done that any of us, and all of us, might find forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life in Jesus. This, as you might guess, dear reader, is my preferred reading for I do not perceive we have a whimsical, capricious God who robs us of liberty and choice. In other words, I am not a Calvinist.
The devotional aspects of verse four are such that I feel I could preach this passage all day long. The impetus of meaning seems to be that because of his choice to love us, God sees us as holy people who are blameless. We know, without doubt, this is not the case. We are not holy. We are profane, vulgar, immoral, and violent. There is little about human beings that is sacred. We are certainly not blameless, either. We are, in fact, liars, criminals, haters, greedy, gossips, murders and lazy.
A pessimist would read this verse and say that if it is a true depiction of God’s feelings towards us, then he is in denial about the actual human condition. But that is not the case. Something far greater is happening, which is why I started this verse with ‘love.’ God has been blinded by his love for us. Love always changes how we see people. Whereas the neighbors might see a grumpy man, a loving wife sees a protector who keeps watch over his family. Paul is teaching us here that God is in a way, hopelessly in love with us. When he looks at us what he sees is a holy and blameless people, because when he looks at us, and this is a metaphor of course because God doesn’t have eyes, but when he looks at us he sees Jesus and his love on the cross.
God is blinded by love. That is the only explanation for why he puts up with us.
Okay, that is enough for now. There will be more to come.