Robert E Rasmussen.com

We have progressed half way through Paul’s letter to the Ephesian congregation, and we should pause here to notice some structural elements of the epistle.

Mountain Ranges of Truth (chapters 1-3) contain:

• high truths about our relationship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
• six references to “in the heavenly places“
• begins and ends with a great prayer
• emphasis on our vertical relationship with God.

Great Plains of Practice (chapters 4-6) contain:

• attention to our horizontal relationships with each other
• four mentions of “one another” (see below)
• five uses of the phrase “therefore…walk,” meaning to live or conduct ourselves
• Paul’s classic teaching on the equipping of the saints, marriage, and praying with the full armor of God

For today, let’s take our first steps from the lofty heights of orthodoxy down toward the plains of orthopraxy (right practice). Paul implores us who believe,

“I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called” (Eph.4:1).

The Greek word “worthy” is built on the word “weight.” Paul says, given all that God has done for us,

• our possession of every spiritual blessing
• our fullness of Him who fills all in all
• our souls once doomed, now saved by grace
• the mystery revealed of one body through the cross,

now live in a way that is suitable and fitting of the weightiness of all these gifts.

As we move from mountains to plains, we turn the invisible realities into tangible activities.

We show the heavenly in earthly garb.

This is how the kingdom comes on earth as it is already the rule of heaven.

Perhaps this week your frustration is building over “social distancing” and all that comes with this Covid-19 virus. Scripture implores us to keep our vantage point in the grand vistas of our true position in Christ.

Lord, help me today to have both feet on the ground of my present circumstances, while capturing the joy of my eternal standing in your love and grace. Amen.

Notice repetition of key phrases

“in the heavenly places” (mostly in first half of epistle)

1:3-14  our reserved blessings and inheritance
1:20-23  authority of Christ over all
2:6   our position in Christ
3:10   witness of the church manifest
3:15   the family of God
6:12   our wrestling with wicked forces

“Therefore… walk” (all in second half of epistle)

4:1  walk worthy of your calling
4:17  walk differently, as new
5:1-2  walk in love
5:7-8  walk in the light
5:15  walk carefully

“one another” (all in second half)

4:2  bearing with one another
4:32  be kind to one another
5:19  speaking and singing to one another
5:21  submitting to one another

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Honestly, I don’t know how to write to you today. We come to the climax of Paul’s celebration of Christ and the Church (Eph.3:14-21). His superlatives are so grand that I feel completely inadequate to comment.

The prayer is a doxology which ends with “forever and ever, Amen”!  I couldn’t agree more. With our world in such trouble right now, how reassuring to know that God’s glory will never be shaken.

Perhaps my best approach is to simply unpack what Paul prays for believers. These are spiritual riches the great apostle, and ultimately Jesus, want all saints to experience. They are already granted. We need to learn to embrace them.

May Christ dwell in your hearts through faith.

May you be rooted and grounded in love.

May you be able to comprehend with all the saints the width, length, depth, and height,

May you know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.

May you be filled with all the fullness of God.

Then Paul explodes with praise!

“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us. To Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever, Amen” (3:20-21).

I don’t know that loftier words have ever been written! They take us to the summit of divine truth.

As I pondered this, my thoughts shifted over to lyrics of a hymn written over 100 years ago by a businessman facing financial failure, Frederick Lehman. As I reviewed his story, I discovered that he took the third stanza from words written anonymously on the wall of a jail cell:

Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made. Were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade.

To write the love of God above, would drain the ocean dry, nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.

O love of God, how rich and pure, how measureless and strong! It shall forevermore endure the saint’s and angel’s song.

I instantly recalled that Paul wrote his grand praise from prison as an “ambassador in chains” (Eph.6:20).

My deepest experiences with the love of God have been in my darkest dungeons of trial. God has given me my most profound words when my self-reliance was knocked out from under me.

What a paradox. When we are at our weakest, we can see God’s love most clearly.

The strain of Covid-19 increasingly confines and frustrates us. Is this an opportunity to reflect:

• What praise is God drawing from my heart?
• How am I yearning more for Him?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
that were a present far too small.
Love so amazing, so divine,
demands my life, my soul, my all.

Mt. Everest soars to 29,035 feet above sea level, the highest point on planet earth.

Ephesians 3:14-21 soars as the highest unveiling of the heavenly places in Christ.

I have described chapters 1-3 as a mountain range of elevated truths. And we come now to the pinnacle peak. How could any person, no matter how brilliant, pen a prayer of praise like this, especially when confined in a cell and chained up?

Paul could only write this way if God had revealed it to him.

I wonder if that is something God wants to do for you and me during these days of confinement.

 

The “inner man” of your church

Paul writes to the congregation in Ephesus as a group of people who possess a shared, corporate spirituality (called “the inner man“). He is prostrate in heart, if not also in posture, begging God to allow them to thrive in the Spirit.

Concern for the inner life of the local church reminds us of John’s letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2-3. I would like you to consider Paul praying this for the local body of believers with whom you fellowship:

“For this reason, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man” (Eph. 3:14-16).

Let’s slow down and ponder this phrase: “our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named” (3:15).

The human family

Now, more than usual, we realize how interconnected we are as a human race. We are only a series of hand touches from every other human being. And Jesus Christ is the agent of our origins, for as Paul declares in a parallel prison letter, “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth” (Col.1:16a).

I believe God is glorified through church and agency efforts which work together across ethnic and ideological lines. During this crisis, it is wonderful to see medical, educational, governmental, religious, and charitable agencies cooperating for the common good. The human family which God created is working together! Praise Him, and well done!

The family of the reconciled

The second and deeper sense of Jesus’ family consists of all those who have called on Him as Savior and Lord. This unleashes a heart-unity that is only possible through the reconciliation brought by Jesus’ saving work.

Too often our churches don’t reflect the “whole family” which Jesus loves. Instead we reflect a social class or ethnic group. But when we signed on with Jesus, we took on the obligation to love everyone just as He loves. 

We have now been schooled in the power of touch. Negatively, if we were to keep touching each other we would all soon be dangerously ill. But turn it around. What if we all started to “touch” each other for good? What if every Christian began touching others with the love of Jesus? And then another, and another?

How would our conversation change?

During these weeks of shelter in place, we are connecting with family and fellow believers through virtual means. I think the Holy Spirit is going to naturally move our conversations through a process that may go something like this:

1. Let’s check in. How are you and your family doing? Do you have your basic needs met?

A period of settling in, and even boredom, will (or has begun to) spread. Then we will ask:

2. What does God seem to want us to pay attention to during this time? What are we noticing about our daily life these days, and what meaning do we take from it?

This is where I am at present. Some friends are making observations about how they have managed their time, finances, family. Out of these musings, the Holy Spirit will create a yearning to move forward more than to return backward:

3. How does God want us to emerge from this time as a family and a congregation? In what ways should we not return to the way it used to be? What is the church to do and be in a world that is so reachable through various kinds of touch?

I am leaning in, eager to see what God is going to do.

We will pick up at this elevation next time.

As the coronavirus spreads across the earth through human bodies, we can have hope because, by believing and following Christ, our most significant realities remain permanent with God.

Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians cites five specific truths which are immune from disease because they reside “in the heavenly places” (which is an accurate translation of Greek, en tois epouranious).

1. In the heavenly places, all the spiritual blessings of the believer are currently and permanently reserved.

“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.” (Eph. 1:3)

We can get anxious about the future of our retirement savings. In some parts of our world today, residents do not have any food for this day. How good to know that God has reserved for believers an inheritance in Christ. We are accepted in the Beloved. We have redemption through the blood of Christ.

I find this virtually impossible to grasp, but I believe it is true.

2. In the heavenly places, Jesus Christ, having been raised from the dead, is seated at the right hand of God.

“which 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 principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.” (1:20-21)

Importantly, Jesus’ seat has authority over every other seat or place in heaven. No principality, power, might, or dominion excels Christ. He looks down on them all, not just barely, but from “far above.”

Nothing can shake this hierarchy of heavenly powers. There can be no coup. The universe of spirits is established. 

3. In the heavenly places, we who follow Christ are raised and seated together with Him.

“and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” (2:6)

This is a metaphysical mystery to me. While we walk bodily on this earth for a few decades, our souls are positioned in heaven with our Savior. In this sense, heaven is not far removed from us. No wonder Paul prayed that the believers would have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him (1:17).

Sickness and death cannot separate you from your true, everlasting life which you already possess as God’s gracious gift (“for by grace you have been saved through faith” 2:8)

4. In the heavenly places, the wisdom of God is put on full display by the church to all other powers.

“to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.” (3:10)

This is wild. The service and worship of the Church is witnessing to heavenly forces and beings. The context would suggest that it is the peace between Jew and Gentile, made possible through the cross, which especially declares God’s wisdom in heaven.

Where the Church and local churches overcome divisiveness and dwell together in unity, God’s power is proclaimed.

Right now, our Asian-American neighbors are experiencing ugly racism. Some people are taunting and ridiculing those of Asian ethnicity due to association with the virus. We believers must counter this attitude, and show the love of Christ where the world shows animosity. This is a perfect time to use that smile, and order Chinese takeout!

5. In the heavenly places, we stand strong in the full armor of God against spiritual hosts of wickedness.

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (6:12)

On one level, our current struggle is against the Covid-19 virus. But Paul, even though confined as “an ambassador in chains” (6:20), knew our ultimate prayer-focus is not on flesh and blood.

And so we are given the whole, victorious armor of the risen Jesus Christ:

• His truth as a belt
• His righteousness as a breastplate
• His gospel of peace as sandals
• His faith as a shield
• His salvation as a helmet
• His word as a sword

Steady yourself. Most of what is true about you is established securely in heaven. Dwell in the peace that is yours in Christ

Pray in confidence that He knows and hears you.
God has heaven well-organized and fully under control.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in Ephesians

For a short letter, this epistle is heavy in teaching on the “trinity” (which is not a word from the Bible, but used to describe the three members of the God-head).

• Chapter 1 contains a hymn of praise with three stanzas; Christ is a thread throughout, but each stanza has a focus on Father, Son, and Spirit.
• 2:18,22.  All believers are reconciled and welcomed into the family and temple of God, by the working of the Trinity.
• 3:14-17.  All three members are mentioned in the prayer for greater understanding of the love and fullness in Christ.
• 4:4-6.  “Spirit,” “Lord” [Jesus], “God and Father” all cited as truths about which we are unified.
• 5:18-21.  Be filled with the Spirit; Sing to the Lord; Give thanks to God the Father.
• Did I miss any?