TO THE SAINTS WHICH ARE AT EPHESUS

THE SECOND IN A SERIES OF MESSAGES ON EPHESIANS FOR BBCMP, DELIVERED 1/12/13 PM

TO THE SAINTS WHICH ARE AT EPHESUS

EPHESIANS 1:1-2

INTRODUCTION:

I will be occasionally giving you more and different introductory information as we proceed, but I won’t be doing another introduction.  But I will be reaching back there to the message last week again and again and pulling out a piece here and there that may help us in understanding whatever text we are dealing with on that day.  Here’s one of them.

Dr. M. L. Jones attempted to described the epistle by working in some of the prominent words or expressions, and this is what he hammered out -

“In this epistle, the apostle exults in and marvels at the glory and the mystery and the riches of God’s way of redemption in Christ.”

He quotes another writer who remarked,

“It is a letter in which the apostle looks at the Christian’s salvation from the vantage point of the heavenly places.”

And that makes sense, because in the other epistles, Paul has more to say about salvation from our standpoint, and he wrestles with issues.   Martin Luther said that the book of Romans was the most important document in the New Testament because it is the place in which the gospel is found in its purest expression. 

Indeed, there is no purer expression of the gospel than that given in the epistle to the Romans.  But if the Epistle to the Romans is the purest expression of the gospel, the Epistle to the Ephesians is the sublimest, and the most majestic expression of it.

Jones says that he does not mean (about Eph.) the most direct expression of the gospel.  Romans has basically one great theme – justification by faith and its implications (4 solas).  Paul comes as close to systematizing the gospel in Romans as he ever cared to.  And then in his other Church Epistles, he tackles all manner of bad doctrine (legalism) in Galatians, bad behavior in the Corinthians, bad philosophy in Colossians, bad attitudes in Philippians, bad eschatology in the Thessalonians. 

But here in this Ephesian epistle, there is no issue, there are no controversies, there is nothing being corrected.  The perspective is the broadest and most majestic.  There is no lengthy spelling out of the need for the gospel, or the nature of the gospel.  It is pure exultation of Christ and the gospel at the outset followed by pure grateful practical application after the mid-point. 

It is as if Paul is looking down on the panorama of God’s wonderful and glorious redemptive work performed by Christ, from the vantage point of heaven itself.  And at a few points along the way, Paul seems to loose himself, and stumble over himself in trying to explain it.

·         PAUL             1:1

We could go into the matter of Paul’s unique apostleship, his salvation and calling on the Road to Damascus, his unique training, his singular revelation of what he calls “the mystery of the gospel”, his missionary journeys and more.  But for now, I’ll be content to just give you that litany of highlights.

·         AN APOSTLE           1:1

It was the highest calling in the Church. 

The word means “one sent”, or “sent one”.   They were sent with a message.

·         OF JESUS CHRIST                        1:1

Remember that “of” is “off” with one “f”.  He is the source, and the foundation from which Paul reached out to them, and to us in this epistle.

It is Him that we represent and Him to Whom we should point, and Him that we should never overlook.  There is no gospel without Him.  There is no salvation apart from Him.  All God’s gracious promises are carried out in, by, and through Christ from beginning to end.  If it is for our salvation, it is in Christ.  Much can be said about the kindness and mercy of God.  But without Christ, it would avail us nothing.

We will see again and again such themes as in Christ, by Christ, through (the blood of) Christ.  He’s everywhere.  We’re blessed in Him (1:3), predestinated unto adoption by Him (1:5), all things will be gathered in Him (1:10), our trust is in Him (1:12), God’s divine power is wrought in Christ (1:20), and that’s just the first chapter.

·         BY THE WILL OF GOD       1:1

That is to say, not just with God’s permission, or even approval, but by Divine deliberate choosing and calling.  No man ought to take on himself the honor of Christian ministry. They will do more harm than good in the Kingdom.  Many are ordained to it that never ought to have been.  A more stringent and uniform vetting process would help.  So would proper preparation.

The whole of our thinking should start with God.  We’re so interested in ourselves that we have forgotten God.  But it’s all about God.  Paul holds us face to face with God, who He is and what He has done.  It emphasizes and attempts to describe the indescribable greatness and glory of God. 

The whole message of the Bible from beginning to end is to bring us back to God, to reveal God, and to humble us before God.  Ephesians is singularly dedicated to that.  I lack the literary skills to really expound on it.  But be aware that we are going to be confronted with the glory and the majesty of God.  We might want to take our shoes off our feet, because we’re going to be standing on holy ground.

We are going to be confronted with the Sovereignty of God.  And we modern Americans are not conditioned to swallow it.  But previous generations were highly occupied with it. 

Notice expressions such as;

•        According to the good pleasure of His will
•        In HimselF
•       According to the counsel of his own will

The Eternal and Everlasting self-sufficient God, from eternity to eternity, God is the greatest theme of the Epistle.

Paul does not begin by examining us.  He turns us away from ourselves to something much more interesting and beneficial – and worthwhile.  God, His works, and His mysterious ways of dealing with men.  He points us toward...

THE MYSTERY OF GOD

One of the several “of God” things in the epistle is the Mystery of God.  Of the 22 times the word mystery is used in Scr. (all N.T., btw) Paul uses all but four of them.  And 6 of those 18 times  uses it are in Ephesians. 

The first time is in this chapter, in v. 9, and look carefully at it.  When many people read the sort of things that Paul has to say in the next several verses, they sometimes remark or even complain that they can’t understand it.  They either can’t understand what he said, or they do understand it, but they can’t understand how Paul could say such a thing or how it could be that God would have done that in the way that He did. 

What they don’t realize is that no mortal mind can really cope with it.  They should not be trying to understand it, but simply accepting and believing that it is so according to the mystery of His will.  

Dr. M.L. Jones said, not these exact words, but something like this - “O the folly of trying to object to the mystery of his will.  He is infinite and eternal, we are finite and sinful.  We don’t see, we don’t understand.  People say, “God isn’t fair if that is true!”  They should put their hand with horror on their mouth, and realize what they are saying and of Whom they are speaking.”

Instead of objecting to it, we should be filled with a sense of delight that we are able to look in to it at all, however remotely and limited.

THE GRACE OF GOD

This is another outstanding idea in this little letter.  The phrase “grace of God” occurs only 3 times, but that’s more than enough to inform us from whom it proceeds, by whom it is given or granted.  But the word grace is used 12x – twice for (not in) each chapter.

·         TO THE SAINTS

That would be everyone in Ephesus that had repented and believed the gospel.  The RCC is un-Scriptural to withhold the title from everyone but a few that they elevate to special status.  That should be obvious.  Not everything they believe and do is wrong, but they are wrong about the gospel, wrong about the ordinances, and wrong about a great deal more including this. 

It is best to avoid referring to Paul as “St. Paul” or Patrick of Ireland as “St. Patrick”, although it is almost unavoidable to speak of St. Patricks Day.  Of course, all of them were saints to be sure.  But so was John Wesley, Charles Spurgeon, Isaac Watts, Martin Luther, Jonathan Edwards, J. Grescham Machen, Francis Schaeffer, and Brother Billy Bob from Bugtussle Arkansas.  And to call St. Athanasias by that designation is to imply that those I just named are not.

Now that they were saints, when you consider what they had been, as Paul describes them, is a truly marvelous thing.   Acts 19 tells us something about what that city was like.  And the same goes for us. 

But what does the word mean?  The root word for the word translated as saint simply means holy.  I gotta say, you don’t look holy to me.  And I probably don’t look holy to you.  But without disputation, the Bible says we are.

And when we come down to the base of it, the word holy signifies separation.  Holy means “set apart.”  The kind of separation which makes a person a saint is separation to God – set apart, as it were, for His uses, in obedience to His commandment, to be employed or handled however God may will.  

You can see this in the Old Testament as the designation 'holy' is applied to the high priest's mitre or to the sacrificial vessels of the Temple the same way it was applied to the people who used them.  

So in those places, it didn’t imply moral qualities at all, but simply that this person or that thing belonged to God.  But it would be difficult to imagine a thing belonging to God and being employed by God for His purposes unless it is somehow purified.  So by extension, the ordinary meaning of holiness has come to be moral purity and cleanness from sin.  And that meaning necessarily flows down from the original meaning, separation and devotion to the service of God.

And this is really helpful in explaining what we should mean when we speak of Christian holiness.  We belong to God, and we should be aware of it.  That fact distinguishes us few on the narrow road from the many on the broad road, who have no thought at all of God’s ownership, and have no inclination at all to yield themselves up to Him for His use.  

And there is more to this than just positional standing.  There is an inevitable practical impact that comes from it.  By imparting to us the Divine nature, when we were saved, and creating us in Christ Jesus unto all good works …, we are set up to run this way.  We stumble, we fail, we waver and wander.  But God’s mark is on us. 

Just as you write your name in your books, or on other things that you want to claim ownership of, God's stamp of ownership upon a man, His 'mark,' by which He says—This man belongs to Me, is holiness.  He writes it with the ink of the likeness of His own character.  So don’t despair.  He that began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.

So, in God's church there is no aristocracy of sanctity.  My work isn’t any holier than yours.  You don’t need to try and cultivate a mystical mindset to be called a saint.  Right down where you live, in the middle of all your day-to-day struggles and challenges, and mundane routines, you are privileged to live the life of a saint. 

Sainthood is about knowing Who you belong to and Who you serve, and taking that knowledge with you into every corner of your life, however poor, or simple or meaningless that may seem to be at the time.  The saint is the man who simply knows, and says, “Lord, I am not my own, I belong to Thee.  Do with me as You see fit, for Thy glory and Thy pleasure, and whatever my hands find to do today, I commend it to You and your Kingdom. 

Do you pray anything of the kind as you begin your day?  All God’s children are His saints.  If your heart utters nothing on its own like I just suggested, the reality of your sainthood is in question.  

·         WHICH ARE AT EPHESUS

Bible critics dispute that address, but there is no valid question about it.  These were the primary intended recipients. 

It has been suggested that the difference between the spiritual conditions of Corinth and Ephesus was that Paul only spent 18 months in the former, but 3 years at the latter.  I think there is something to it.  But people are people – sinful, petty, sensual, judgmental, griping, seditious, ungrateful and undependable no matter how long you are with them and what you do for them or what you teach them.  But at least at the time of writing, Paul knew of no problems there, and was able to do what he could not do in any other epistle, and that is to sail among the clouds and marvel at the wonders of God’s redemptive work in Christ.

·         AND TO THE FAITHFUL IN CHRIST JESUS

That would be us, or at least we would hope so.  But it does open the audience up from just the Ephesian believers.

·         GRACE TO YOU AND PEACE, etc.

For centuries Christians have used these words, or some version of them during the worship service.  One good protestant, strongly anti-Romish commentator (Gordon H. Clark) wrote,

“The blessing, benediction, or salutation of verse two may need some explanation, not because of its difficulty, but because of its familiarity.  We hear such benedictions in church every Lord’s Day and are so accustomed to the phraseology that we forget its meaning.”

And so I have learned to include an apostolic greeting in our Church order of service.

We will have plenty to say about grace in the weeks to come.  For now I’ll just say that grace can be thought of as the cause of salvation.  As for peace, as it’s used here it is not a life of undisturbed tranquility free from vexation or danger.  It is with reference to the change that has gone on in us, from our former enmity with God to our new relationship with God as our adopted Father.  Peace is the result of salvation. 

These things come from both the Father and the Son, and they come by means of our union with Christ, and nothing else.   And we thank God for them once again.