The final chapter of Galatians was encouragement but virtually no doctrine. We move on to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians as a letter to be shared across Asia Minor. Thus, there are no personal notes to anyone specifically by name. By the time Paul was in Roman custody, Ephesus had already started to become the center of gravity for Christian religion, as things were heating up in Judea between the Jews and Rome, and Jewish Christians were fleeing. Writing from his confinement in Rome, the single major issue behind this letter was the ongoing division between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
Both factions suffered a powerful tendency to rely on the flesh. Jews typically never got past their “chosen” identity and cliquish behavior demonstrating discomfort with Gentiles in general. The Gentiles struggled to latch onto the necessity of moral purity in their conduct. In this first chapter, Paul begins tearing down the wall between them by emphasizing their new covenant identity as Christians. He begins using the constant refrain of being “in Christ” particularly as a reference to this citizenship.
It’s important to notice that verses 3-14 are one long sentence. It comes close to a Trinitarian statement, in that there is a section about the Father, another about the Son, and third about the Holy Spirit. He offers praise that the Father chose us in eternity, the Son redeemed them (and us) in their recent history, and the Holy Spirit came to lock us into that redemption in our individual personal pasts. It’s a doctrinal tour de force in just a few lines.
He starts with see several conjugations of the Greek word translated into English as “bless” coming from a root denoting someone or something worthy of adoration. We and the Father naturally find each other adorable. He chose us, each marked out before this wretched world was begun, with the intention of making us as pure as Passover lambs. He committed Himself to adopt us His own children because He loved us, joint heirs with Christ. This mass adoption is a part of His glory; any earthly ruler would count the size, ability and prosperity of his tribe as a primary manifestation of his glory. He gave us each other, our talents and adorned us with His grace as a fitting bequest to His Heir.
Regarding the Son, it was His awful price in blood that bought us, making us welcome into the Covenant. With this adoption covenant came unspeakable privileges that He willingly gives, simply because Jesus could see a vast empire would be His. The Father had kept secret His plan to offer His Son a realm of people who could be and build a vast wealth and power. All of this had to wait until the right moment when the Son could inherit all the power and authority of Heaven and Earth. As citizens of this empire (“in Christ”) we become God’s claimed nation (versus the nations claimed by the Elohim Council after the Tower of Babel). This is what “predestination” means — marked for seizure from the other nations for a special purpose in which God never fails. Paul specifically points to his readers as part of the first generation of citizens in this new empire, a very high privilege as the first of many generations to glorify the Messiah.
Thus, when the readers of this letter first heard the gospel message, and were moved to believe in Christ, they were granted the seal of the Holy Spirit. Since there’s no way they could experience all that comes with that in this life, it’s as if that first generation are on layaway until everything is completed and all the saints God has claimed can be brought into the fold. The Blood has yet to be applied to future souls waiting to be born into this glorious empire.
Catch your breath now.
There in his Roman confinement, Paul heard from messengers how the churches in Asia Minor had progressed to the point they had learned to submit to Christ as their Lord and to recognize their fellow citizens of Heaven. It caused him to celebrate the unspeakable blessing of having been a part of that. He kept praying for more of the same; may the Lord continue working in them.
May they continue embracing the convictions of their hearts as their guide to understanding the full privilege and duty as members of Christ’s empire, in particular, the divine gifts of the Holy Spirit working in their bodies. That’s the same power that raised Christ from the dead, and which placed Him on His throne. Every power and authority in Heaven and Earth is now subject to His whims. That includes domains in the Spirit Realm that no human can imagine.
He is our Lord; we are His body. We are His hands and feet throughout the whole earth.
