EPHESIANS 1:
OUR REDEMPTION IN THE FAITH
IN JESUS CHRIST
EPHESIANS 1:
OUR REDEMPTION IN THE
FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST
JAN LILLEBY
Ephesians 1, the chapter in which we find God raining…showering…yes, lavishing tons of eternal heavenly blessings upon us in Jesus Christ!
Notice that Paul was not addressing his epistle to unbelievers. He wrote to us who believes on Jesus Christ. Thus, when eventual unsaved people read it, they are getting an overview of the glorious salvation we have in Him. Making them jealous I hope. They would want to get hold of these blessings…I hope. And all it takes is their personal faith in Jesus Christ as the One Who can save them – God’s spotless innocent sacrificial Lamb, Who took upon Himself the sin of the World and paid in full our depth and guilt. And He rose from the dead on the third day, and was received in heaven – now seated at the right hand of God, His Father.
There are scholars who comments on Ephesians, by saying that the entire epistle seem to be one glorious sermon on Christ’s glory and power and grace. I tend to agree with those!
BLESSED IN HEAVENLY PLACES BY
FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST
Eph. 1:1-3, NASB,
“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus:
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,”
Paul’s greeting does not contain threats and damnation if we don’t believe, but he opens with GRACE, and then PEACE, for to top it off with EVERY SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS in heavenly places. Blessings in plural tense, combined with past tense! We are already blessed…as well as that blessing shall continue forever and ever. It is never going to end.
It is not going to get better than this!
No one can ever top it off…we already have been BLESSED with EVERY spiritual blessing in HEAVENLY PLACES.
It says, PLACES…not ‘a place’. Plural tense.
Heaven up there with Christ is a PLACE among other places in heaven.
Our calling is HEAVENLY, not earthly. At the time being, we simply cannot fully understand the full gorgeous meaning of being blessed. But it is HUGE…immensely and gloriously!
What a way to start a letter to the saints at Ephesus. It must have ‘blown their socks off’…as they sat listening to the person who read it aloud to the congregation!
I will throw in here, for the show of it, Col. 3:1-4, as Paul pointed to the HEAVEN UP ABOVE as the right focus for the church,
“Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.
3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.”
Our calling is the heaven up above, and not the Kingdom of God on earth. It is non-negotiable that our hope of salvation is entirely and gloriously HEAVEN UP ABOVE.
Paul wrote in Greek, and heaven is translated from epouranios, which means the ‘heaven-up-above-the heavens. Strong’s Lexicon G2032.
But heaven does not mean another planet or such. It is a place and places away from the earth, and into another ‘dimension’ – a heavenly dimension higher than the universe. It cannot be reached with rockets and spaceships.
When Jesus ascended up to God, He was disappearing surrounded by a thick sort of cloud. And Jesus was super-naturally transferred right into the heaven where He still resides with His Father. He did not travel in space…at mega-speeds…eventually landing on a planet called ‘Heaven’. His entering into heaven was entirely super-natural, defying any law of nature. Science cannot ever tell how this was accomplished, but God just did it, Acts 1:9.
OUR SINS FORGIVEN ACCORDING
TO THE RICHES OF HIS GRACE
Eph. 1:4-7, NASB,
“4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love
5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,
6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.”
Paul continues his line of telling us how great a salvation we have been given by the grace of God. He even calls it …the riches of His grace, v. 7.
His grace is an expression of how rich and glorious God and Christ are. Likewise it is that as immensely rich God is, that is also how great His forgiveness is, His mercies and His loving care for us poor human beings, since we do believe on Jesus Christ.
His grace and His blessings greatly surpasses all understanding, we cannot possibly comprehend how great He is in His grace towards us.
“But God hates all sin!!”
Yes, of course He does, but He loves us in Christ and He identify us with His beloved Son, Who has cleansed us with His own sacrificial blood on the cross, and deemed us entirely righteous before Him. God has got full payment for all our sins, as Jesus gave His life at the cross.
Put simply: He has done it all, and we have done nothing. All we have ‘done’ is having faith in Jesus. We are not saved by works or by observing the Law of Moses, etcetera. There are no ordinances for the church to keep, whatsoever.
Insomuch that Paul declares in Col. 1:13, 14, NASB,
“For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,
14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
Paul’s rhetoric style is evident here – almost as a metaphor, we ARE ALREADY transferred over into His heavenly Kingdom!
The Grace-Gospel of Paul is operating in the highest of divine spheres, far above the earthly Kingdom-promises which the twelve apostles preached to Israel in their time. Paul’s grace gospel exceeds greatly all four historic gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Paul pointed us to the heavenly realms in Christ in the heaven up above, at the right hand of God His Father. This heavenly salvation was revealed to Paul for us Gentiles, he said in Eph. 3.
Ephesians chapter 1 is one bright shining jewel of God’s glorious word of salvation for us Gentiles. It flows over with divine superlatives and the glory of God in Christ for us, all by faith and in His eternal grace.
THE HOLY SPIRIT GIVEN AS A
PLEDGE TO OUR INHERITANCE
Eph. 1:8-14, NASB,
“8 which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight
9 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him
10 with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him
11 also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will,
12 to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory.
13 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation -having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise,
14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory.”
I have clipped in an AI-generated explanation of the word ‘lavished’ – found in verse 8, quote,
“The word lavished means to give, spend, or bestow something—such as gifts, affection, or praise—in extremely generous, extravagant, or excessive amounts. When you lavish something on someone, you are showering them with it abundantly or without limit.”
As I already told above: it doesn’t get better than this! Not ever.
It seem like Paul displayed to us immediately ALL OF GOD’S BLESSINGS in the First Chapter of Ephesians, and in repetitive manner.
And in the remaining chapters following, he explains all of that in a more detailed and formal doctrinal manner.
Like for instance, when coming to Eph. 3 – we are told that these divine blessings by faith WAS GIVEN TO HIM, FOR US GENTILES, BY GOD REVEALING A MYSTERY.
In verse 9 Paul already gives a hint to the mystery- ‘…the mystery of His will…”
Then come the Biblical truth for all Christ-believers: we have gotten an inheritance, verse 11, and then we learn that God gave us the Holy Spirit as a Pledge to this inheritance, a guarantee that we will get what is promised. Verses 12-14. Wow! What a spiritual divine ‘rain shower’!
THE GREATNESS OF HIS POWER
TOWARD US WHO BELIEVE
“15 For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints,
16 do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers;
17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.
18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
19 and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might
20 which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,”
This is powerful stuff – directly from God’s handout to us via the Grace-Gospel of Paul.
Notice that it is not by OUR WORKING….but it is by God’s STRENGTH OF HIS MIGHT, verse 19. Big, big difference there. It is God Who, in Christ, makes all things work in our favor in the heavenly calling we have been given.
THE FULLNESS OF HIM
WHO FILLS ALL IN ALL
“21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.
22 And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church,
23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”
Paul – again – points out the immense glorious divine might which Jesus Christ possesses; He has ALL of what God has. We could really say here, …like Father, like Son.
And this mighty Savior, Jesus the Son of God, He is the HEAD of His church. Jesus is our real Pastor, as well as the fact that He is our ONLY Pastor.
Gracepano.com
