Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus:  Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1.1-2).

This greeting is typical of how Paul begins all his letters.  In many cases the slight differences in Paul’s greeting will reflect some theme or issue he will address in the body of his letter.  In this case, Paul is writing a general tract communicating his message as an Apostle of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Thus, the implications of this generic greeting get especially explained in the rest of this letter.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus

Paul is an ambassador, a delegate, an agent, an appointed representative. The title apostle means all those things in this case.  But Paul writes as the apostle of Christ Jesus which means that we must think of him as a royal ambassador for another kingdom.

Why “royal”?  Because Jesus is a real king sending his messengers to the nations.

The term “Christ” is the Greek word for anointed.  In Israel a priest or king was installed into office by being anointed with oil.  The ritual represented the action of God’s Spirit in appointing someone to and equipping and empowering him for office.  When God rescued Israel from Egypt and had them build a tent for him to dwell in their midst, Aaron, the first Priest to serve God there, was anointed with oil (Leviticus 8.12).  Samuel the prophet anointed David with oil to declare him king of Israel (First Samuel 16.13).  David was the beginning of a royal dynasty in Israel that remained in power (more or less) until Israel was invaded by the Babylonian Empire and deported.  Since that time, as Israel hoped for a return for the glory that they had when they were independent, they came to expect God to restore a new descendant of David to the throne.  Indeed, God promised by the prophets that he would do so.  In the Hebrew language, the expected King was called “the Messiah.”  In Greek, he was called “the Christ.”  Both mean, “the anointed one,” referring to God’s promise to appoint someone as a new king for a renewed kingdom.

This has a great deal of import as to how we are to read Paul’s letter.  In the late popular television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ancient texts were constantly studied in order to find obscure prophecies about the future or else give clues as to how to deal with supernatural forces.  Some people assume the Bible is meant to be regarded in this manner and either revere it in this fashion or dismiss it because they know there are no such forces.

Another popular genre today is self-help, books that are produced in both secular and spiritual styles.  Many see this as the role for Biblical literature.  Paul is writing practical advice for us to be better people, or to give us inspiration for living.

But Paul’s own interpretation of himself says that he is writing as the representative of the heir and ruler of the world.  Even though Paul (as we will see) regarded himself as commissioned to represent Jesus to the nations outside Israel, and even when he was reviled and persecuted by fellow Israelites for doing so, Paul never wavered from proclaiming a specifically Jewish message.  “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal,” he wrote years later to his understudy, Timothy (Second Timothy 2.8-9a). For Paul, the royal identity of Jesus as the promised descendant of David was always essential.

In fact, Paul believed that precisely because the heir of David had now ascended into heaven to rule the world, he could and must now proclaim him as the universal savior or deliverer of humanity.  As he wrote to the Romans: “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord [Jesus] is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him” (Romans 10.12).

In other words, when originally written, and even now, Paul was writing political material.  He was writing to establish and strengthen communities in loyalty to a new king who was the lord and deliverer of not just the Israelites who sided with him, but of everyone who entrusted themselves to him.  As a preacher and teacher he was, in a real sense, the representative of an invading force establishing a beachhead on planet Earth.  Rather than an alien invasion, Paul would have claimed that he was bringing back real humanity to the world.

In the eyes of the authorities in Paul’s own day, his message could be regarded as subversive, if not outright treason (Matthew 2.3; John 19.12; Acts 17.7).  Today we miss this.  In today’s society, Ephesians is a book that corresponds to private life, personal preference, interior “spirituality.”  But in Paul’s mind, this is a letter to the nations from their emperor.  From the standpoint of the Roman Emperor it is a letter from a pretender to a disloyal cell within the body politic.

TO BE CONTINUED

Here is Paul telling his readers that he is praying they will be brought to understand God’s omnipotence:

…the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 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.  And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.  But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

So reads Ephesians 1.19bff without the chapter break. Typically, people read “made us alive together with Christ” as personal regeneration. The gift of faith mentioned in the next verse is obviously the way we appropriate this so that it can be said that we were made alive with Christ, but the making alive here refers not to our history, but to Jesus’. Gaffin tries to deny this as Ridderbos articulates it, saying that the “dead” in 2.1 is not identification with Christ’s death, but in our trespasses and sins. True, but the point here is not that we identified with Christ. Rather, he identified with us. Though sinless, he joined us in our curse in the ultimate way by submitting to death.

The transition here is not the transition of individual biography. Reading Acts it is obvious that many people were not “following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience,” living “in the passions of our flesh, carrying ou the desires of the body and the mind…” Cornelius was a devout man whose prayers were acceptable to God. The point here is that both Jew and Gentile races were going to Hell and, before the death and resurrection of Christ, the entire age was characterized in this way. Jesus representatively put the world to death and renewed the world in his person. Those who believe the Gospel message are sealed with the Spirit (1.13, 14) to Christ. We are saved “through faith” (2.8). But that work of the Spirit is not in view for believers in 1.19-2.7. Rather, it is the work of the Spirit in declaring a verdict on Christ by raising him. Christ was given the credit for his faithful life culminating in death on the cross by his resurection and ascension. When we believe the Gospel we receive and are received into Christ so that we share his verdict. Our sins no longer legally matter because Christ’s death to sin counts as ours. There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus (Romans 8.1). Furthermore, Christ’s faithful life and ongoing faithful reign are reckoned as our own. Positively and negatively, Jesus’ righteousness is ours.

Paul is perfectly capable of mixing the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection with the story of a believer’s conversion (Colossians 2.8-15). But in Ephesians 1.19-2.7 it seems to me we have the historia salutis, not the personal ordo.

And you [Gentiles] were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you [Gentiles] once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we [Jews] all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us [both], even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you [Gentiles] have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

This is not about being regenerated.

Abraham, Moses, Daniel, Zacharias and Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna, and Cornelius were all dead this way.

Paul is not saying that sinners and unbelievers were raised to Christ. He is saying they were all “made alive together” and “raised… up with him” and “seated with him” when Jesus was resurrected and raised. Read from 1.19 to 2.7 and ignore the chapter divisions and this becomes even more obvious.

To grasp Paul’s thinking we need to consider the spatial or geographical values we find in the Old Testament and transfer them from space to time.  Before Israel entered the Promised Land, Moses warned them about what would happen if they turned to other gods. The ultimate punishment would be exile from the land:

The LORD will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known. And there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone… And the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known (Deuteronomy 28.36; 64).

When King Saul drives David away, David accuses him of wrongly putting him under this curse: “for they have driven me out this day that I should have no share in the heritage of the LORD, saying, ‘Go, serve other gods’” (1 Samuel 26.19). Later, Jeremiah prophesied at a time when the curse Moses warned about was coming to pass. Israel was being sent into exile.  God spoke through Jeremiah, “I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods day and night” (Jeremiah 16.13). The nations are viewed as under the dominion of “other gods,” so that a fitting punishment for worshiping other gods is to be forced of the Promised Land to be slaves in these other lands. This not only happened to idolaters, however. Daniel and his three friends were also among those sent to “serve other god day and night.”  Even though they personally believed and clung to the true God they were, in a sense, under the jurisdiction of the false gods of the nations. A similar thought is expressed by Paul to the Corinthians when he assumes that to be cast out of the Church is to be handed over to Satan (1 Corinthians 5.1-17)–though in this case the person who is exiled is also personally guilty.

This same idea can also be applied to history. Adam and Eve were given a dominion which they objectively handed over to Satan. They brought themselves and their descendants under the curse of death. We were all dead before Christ came and died with us and rose again. There were those who were saved from that age of death by faith in God and there are those now who keep themselves in a state of death by unbelief, but what Jesus did in history is definite and objective. He brought new life to the world.

In fact, the geographical transition prophesied as a resurrection in “the valley of dry bones” in Ezekiel 37 would also be mainly experienced as a chronological transition by most Israelites. Most Jews never returned to live in the Promised Land. They prayed for it and supported the rebuilding the Temple but much of the foreign population in the empire stayed that way and grew there. They were supposed to. The “missionary” journeys of Paul recorded in Acts would never have been possible otherwise. This was the greatest covenantal arrangement before Jesus came. David and Solomon never sponsored the construction of synagogues in Corinth, or Antioch, or Rome. That happened during the age of Empires. Judaism became an international religion.

So, for most Jews, learning of the fulfillment of Ezekiel’s prophecy of resurrection marked a new period in history more than a new location in the world. They were all “dead” in Babylon or Susa or elsewhere. And then they learned the glorious news that they had been raised from the dead. The temple was rebuilt. The sacrifices were re-established. The age of new life had begun.

In many cases, they had to take this message on faith because their circumstances probably did not instantly change. They were still “exiles” dealing with their problems in the world. Many had received blessings in their foreign homes and did not see a dramatic improvement in them after hearing of the rebuilt Temple.  But, according to the Word of God, they were no longer “dead” in exile, but “alive” in a new Temple administration. Hopefully they were encouraged. Hopefully some who had slid into compromise with local gods repented and returned to devotion to the God who had fulfilled his promises. Hopefully they became better witnesses to convert the pagans around them to the true God.

So it should not surprise us that Paul describes the death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus as our own resurrection.

Passage: Ephesians 1.1-2 (ESV Bible Online).

to the saints who are in Ephesus

Why “saints”?  What does that term mean?

The easiest thing to do is to say that a saint is a “holy one” and just assume we all know what holiness is and let it go at that.  To modern readers, that really explains nothing.  Yes, a saint is a Latin derivative that translates the Hebrew and Greek terms for “holy one.”  But what does that mean?

The first time we find the word holy used as a noun it is used in Exodus 3.5 when Moses meets God in the burning bush.  God tells him to remove his shoes because he is standing on holy ground.  Normally, according to the way the Bible explains our situation, the ground is cursed because of sin (see Genesis 3).  But when God draws near his presence makes the cursed ground holy so that it is an insult to wear shoes as if one needed protection from it.  God drew near to a particular place at a particular time and that meant that the ground that he touched down upon was holy and had to be treated accordingly.

Another story is the story of Passover with the resulting law set down for Israel in Exodus 13.3 that every first born animal was to be “sanctified”—made holy.  How does one sanctify a firstborn?  Well in the case of an animal that is acceptable on the altar, sanctifying the firstborn meant bringing it to the central sanctuary and offering it up into God’s presence from the sanctuary altar.

That leads us to another story, the story of when God came down on Mount Sinai, once again that piece of geography had to be treated as “holy”—as special due to God’s special presence there.  On that Mountain, God instructed the Israelites to build him a tent in which to live.  That tent had different sections: the outer section was called “the holy place” and the interior section where God’s footstool dwelt was called “the holy of holies.”  The whole structure is mentioned in Exodus 25.8 this way: “And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst.”  Sanctuary, like saint, is an English terms we have derived from our Latin roots.  Sanctus—“holy”—is the root of both saint and sanctuary, holy one and holy place. The sanctuary, remember, is where God is enthroned.  Beyond the holy place in the Holy of Holies was the Ark of the Covenant overshadowed by two golden Cherubim.  The Bible declares that God was enthroned above those Cherubim so that the Ark was his footstool (First Chronicles 28.2; Psalm 99.5; 132.7).  As the Psalmist declares in Psalm 98—a Psalm all about God’s ruler over the world from his throne—“Holiness befits your house, O LORD.”

In the events of Mount Sinai we first have a reference to people as “holy ones” or saints.  Moses gives a blessing that recounts what happened:

The Lord came from Sinai,
And dawned on them from Seir;
He shone forth from Mount Paran,
And He came from the midst of ten thousand holy ones; [angels]
At His right hand there was flashing lightning for them.
Indeed, He loves the people;
All Your holy ones are in Your hand,
And they followed in Your steps;
Everyone receives of Your words.
Moses charged us with a law,
A possession for the assembly of Jacob [33.2-4].

When God is enthroned at Sinai, it is appropriate to refer to his angels as “holy ones”; and when at the same time God is enthroned among his people, it is appropriate to refer to them as “holy ones,” saints, as well.  Since Ephesians repeatedly describes the enthronement of Jesus at God’s right hand, it is an especially appropriate term for those who belong to Jesus.

We typically think of holiness as a certain kind of moral quality.  Someone is holy if he is righteous or godly.  That’s true but it is a secondary development.

The primary meaning of holy is simply near to God’s special presence.  In the case of God Himself, when he is described as “holy, the term probably refers to His own independent integrity which also reminds us of his transcendence and separation from creation.  But for all other things or people, being holy refers to access to, or association with, God’s sanctuary.  Some things come near to God and they have no business being there so God expels them by destroying them or banishing them.  They are not holy and therefore may not get that close.  Other things belong near to God so that they can be called holy even if they are separated from God’s presence—they are meant to be brought to Him.  The idea there is that they shouldn’t be so separated.

This is the legal position of all Christians; they are holy.  All who profess their faith in Jesus are given authorized access to God’s throne room.  The amazing privilege this involves can be seen from another story from Second Chronicles 26: When King Azariah tried to force his way into the holy place, a skin disease broke out on his forehead so that he was expelled not only from the Tabernacle but also from his own throne in Jerusalem.  According to Leviticus, skin diseases that exposed the inner flesh banned a person from access to God’s palace and from populous areas.  But Paul, in calling us saints is ascribing to us free access to where kings were once barred.

Of course, the problem with saying all this is that all the concrete reference points are no longer visible.  There is no longer one central sanctuary on earth that is especially the place and home of God’s presence.  Therefore, there is no literal, geographical access to experience the way, for example, the people of Israel.

Nevertheless, this is not just an esoteric analogy.  Here are a few implications:

First, The fact that all believers are saints means that we are all equally welcome to God and must be welcome to one another. We have a right to God’s presence and we cannot deny the right of other believers to our fellowship. Any divisions between Christians based on race, sex, some kind of alleged holiness above and beyond one’s basic Christian identity is a repudiation of the fact that all believers are saints.

Second, the fact we are all saints means that we are under God’s close scrutiny.  He pays attention to us.  We should act as people who are in God’s company at all times.

Third, the fact that all Christians means we can now meet and worship as the church in any place on earth and, when we do so, we have the same or better access to God’s presence than the priests did who served in God’s temple in Israel before the coming of Christ. There is no longer only one geographical sanctuary on earth that is holy to God.  In Israel, before Jesus ascended into heaven, the only place where one was permitted to eat at sacramental feasts was the central sanctuary.  Now Christians all over the world can eat and drink a sacramental meal of fellowship with Jesus.  We are welcome at his table anywhere on earth.

Passage: Ephesians 1.1-2 (ESV Bible Online).

“by the will of God”

Obeying God is obviously important to Paul.  He will later exhort some of his readers, or those listening to his letter read out loud, that they do “the will of God from the heart” (Ephesians 6.6).  So it would be natural, in reading this phrase, to think that Paul is simply pointing out that his commission as King Jesus’ ambassador is backed by divine authority.

However, Paul seems to be saying something more here.  Consider what Paul says in the next few sentences,

he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.  In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory (1.5- 12; emphasis added).

So when Paul announces his Apostleship “through the will of God,” he is saying that God appointed him to the office in order to fulfill His plan to save the world.  Jesus’ accomplishments alone are not enough.  It was and is essential to God’s purpose that the message of Jesus be announced to all the world.  As we will see, Paul views Jesus himself to be traveling, working, and speaking through his servants (c.f. Ephesians 2.17).

Passage: Ephesians 1.1-2 (ESV Bible Online).

“Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus”

Paul is an ambassador, a delegate, an agent, an appointed representative.  The title apostle means all those things in this case.  But Paul writes as the apostle of Christ Jesus which means that we must think of him as a royal ambassador for another kingdom.

Why “royal”?  Because Jesus is a real king sending his messengers to the nations.

The term “Christ” is the Greek word for anointed.  In Israel a priest or king was installed into office by being anointed with oil.  The ritual represented the action of God’s Spirit in appointing someone to and equipping and empowering him for office.  When God rescued Israel from Egypt and had them build a tent for him to dwell in their midst, Aaron, the first Priest to serve God there, was anointed with oil (Leviticus 8.12).  Samuel the prophet anointed David with oil to declare him king of Israel (First Samuel 16.13).  David was the beginning of a royal dynasty in Israel that remained in power (more or less) until Israel was invaded by the Babylonian Empire and deported.  Since that time, as Israel hoped for a return for the glory that they had when they were independent, they came to expect God to restore a new descendant of David to the throne.  Indeed, God promised by the prophets that he would do so.  In the Hebrew language, the expected King was called “the Messiah.”  In Greek, he was called “the Christ.”  Both mean, “the anointed one,” referring to God’s promise to appoint someone as a new king for a renewed kingdom.

This has a great deal of import as to how we are to read Paul’s letter.  In the late popular television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ancient texts were constantly studied in order to find obscure prophecies about the future or else give clues as to how to deal with supernatural forces.  Some people assume the Bible is meant to be regarded in this manner and either revere it in this fashion or dismiss it because they know there are no such forces.

Another popular genre today is self-help, books that are produced in both secular and spiritual styles.  Many see this as the role for Biblical literature.  Paul is writing practical advice for us to be better people, or to give us inspiration for living.

But Paul’s own interpretation of himself says that he is writing as the representative of the heir and ruler of the world.  Even though Paul (as we will see) regarded himself as commissioned to represent Jesus to the nations outside Israel, and even when he was reviled and persecuted by fellow Israelites for doing so, Paul never wavered from proclaiming a specifically Jewish message.  “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal,” he wrote years later to his understudy, Timothy (Second Timothy 2.8-9a). For Paul, the royal identity of Jesus as the promised descendant of David was always essential.

In fact, Paul believed that precisely because the heir of David had now ascended into heaven to rule the world, he could and must now proclaim him as the universal savior or deliverer of humanity.  As he wrote to the Romans: “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord [Jesus] is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him” (Romans 10.12).

In other words, when originally written, and even now, Paul was writing political material.  He was writing to establish and strengthen communities in loyalty to a new king who was the lord and deliverer of not just the Israelites who sided with him, but of everyone who entrusted themselves to him.  As a preacher and teacher he was, in a real sense, the representative of an invading force establishing a beachhead on planet earth.  Rather than an alien invasion, Paul would have claimed that he was bringing back real humanity to the world.

In the eyes of the authorities in Paul’s own day, his message would have been regarded as subversive, if not outright treason.  Today we miss this.  In today’s society, Ephesians is a book that corresponds to private life, personal preference, interior “spirituality.”  But in Paul’s mind, this is a letter to the nations from their emperor.  From the standpoint of the Roman Emperor it is a letter from a pretender to a disloyal cell within the body politic.

Paul could write what is plainly a general statement of his doctrine about the work and person of Christ and the salvation he has wrought for believers–and he could do so without once mentioning the word, “justification” or even use any of the “righteous” word group for a forensic status given to believers.

I wonder what would happen if I wrote an introduction to Christ and salvation without once mentioning justification.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love. He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love.

This is all one run-on sentence. Many translations put a period after “before him,” and then begin the next sentence, “In love he predestined…”

I think the period belongs where I have put it above so that it reads that God chose us that we should be “holy and blameless before him in love.”

My reasoning is this: Paul will later exhort the Ephesians to do what they were chosen to do:

3.17: “that you, being rooted and grounded in love,…”

4.2: “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love”

4.15: ”Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,”

4.16: “makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”

5.1-2: “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children and walk in love”

In all these ways Paul instructs his readers how they can behave in a holy and blameless manner in love. God has chosen them for this and given them access to himself (i.e. holiness, “saints”) so that they must act in an appropriate manner to their new position (“holy”).

Turns out I have a lot of backing on my thesis that Ephesians is more pivotal in its significance than we often think. Warnock collects the quotations.