The Chosen

Eph. 1:1-14

Welcome to a new series, on the Book of Ephesians. This series has an unusual title: “Therefore”. There’s a popular saying in church sermons that point out the word “therefore”: People ask, “What’s the ‘therefore’ there for?” And it is a good question. Here, our entire series is called “therefore” so it is even more appropriate to ask the question. I hate to give away the answer so soon, but let me just point out that the word that the series is named after appears in Eph. 4:1. Ironically, the word is translated “then”, not “therefore” Eph. 4:1 in the NIV. But the word is the Greek word oun (omicron upsilon nu, pronounced “oon”) and is usually translated as “therefore.” It appears about 500 times in the New Testament, so it is a pretty common word. It actually appears 7 times just in the Book of Ephesians, but there is something special about that second occurrence, the one that occurs in Eph. 4:1. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves – that’s all I’m going to say about oun for now.

Now it is no accident that we are exploring the Book of Ephesians on the heels of going through the Book of Acts. Some theologian has said that “Acts is all about the history of the church, and Ephesians is all about the theology of the church” and I think that is right. As we will see, Ephesians is very rich in theology. 

I think that is a enough of an introduction for us to begin to dig into this book. And so let me start with the opening of the letter, the first two verses: 

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, 

To God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. – Eph. 1:1-2

Somewhat similar to a modern letter, letters at the time the New Testament was written start with a “from” line, and then a “to” line, and then a “greetings” line. The “from” line identifies the author of Paul, and he describes himself as an apostle of Christ Jesus. He describes himself as an apostle in multiple letters. 

Let me ask a question. Is this presumption? Is this boasting? I would say strongly the answer to both questions is “no.” What did Paul mean by the term? I think he meant that he was someone, like the Twelve, who had been personally commissioned by Jesus to go out and share the gospel, making disciples of Jesus. As we saw in the book of Acts, both Paul and the Twelve did have direct encounters with Jesus – although Paul’s was a bit different in that he did not meet with Jesus before He died, nor did he meet with Jesus during His days after the resurrection before He went up to heaven. But he nevertheless did have an encounter with Jesus on the Damascus road, as we read about in Acts 9. Recall that a voice spoke to Paul, saying, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” And Paul replied “Who are you, lord?” And the response could not be any more plain: “I am Jesus, who you are persecuting. Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” There he had met Ananias, whom God had also called. And God told Ananias what Paul’s special mission would be: “Go! This man is My chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for My name.” Paul certainly was qualified to use the word “apostle” to describe himself. And he was not boastful to do so, because we know from other New Testament letters that there were many who tried to discredit Paul. And so Paul is very clear here in the opening of Ephesians: He states that he was an apostle of Messiah Jesus “by the will of God,” not by his own will.  

Next we have the “to” line: “To God’s holy people, […] the faithful in Christ Jesus.” Wait, did I leave out some words? Well, that is a little complicated. Some of the earliest manuscript copies we have of Ephesians do not have the words “in Ephesus.” And so on one theory, one that makes a lot of sense to me, is that this letter went out to many early churches, and for each one, Paul wrote “in” followed by the name of the city or region the letter was to go to. One reason I think this makes a lot of sense is that this letter has essentially no personal references in it. There’s no “say hi to so-and-so for me”, no “I am sending so-and-so to you.” I believe this letter was used in this way because it is indeed teaching foundational theology of the church, and thus, was meant for all the churches. Unlike letters like, say I and II Corinthians, it is not addressing a particular problem at a particular church location.

And so, who is letter written to? Paul uses the phrase “God’s holy people.” The Greek word used is agios, which can also be translated saints. But another phrase you could use to describe this word is “the chosen,” which happens to be our message title for today. (No, it’s not because of a certain TV show.) Do you have a misunderstanding of what a saint is? Do you picture the people that Catholic churches are named after, that statues are made of? Well, that is a re-definition of the word. In Scripture, all true believers are called saints, holy ones, agios. If you are a believer, you are all of these things. 

But, you say, you don’t feel holy? Well, in yourself, you most certainly are not holy. But this is talking about your “declared” holiness – if you are truly a believer in Jesus, if you have placed your hope in Him, then when God looks at you, He sees Christ’s holiness, because the sinless Christ died for you. We could go much deeper into this theme, but if we do we will never get through our passage today. Suffice it to say that if you are a believer, then you are a saint. Don’t let it go to your head. You are a saint because of Christ, not because of you, just like Paul is an apostle because of Christ, not because of Paul. 

Paul also calls the letter recipients the “faithful ones” in Christ Jesus. This is another word that has shifted meaning on us. When we think of someone being faithful, say in their job, we mean that they consistently get the work done. This idea of faithfulness is cut off from the reason for that faithfulness. But the word in Greek means something very different. It means people who have faith, believers. Yes, they demonstrate faithfulness in the modern sense that we use the word, that is, they are faithful to continue to do the things that believers should do, but the all-important thing is the reason they do it – because of their faith. And so Paul is writing to the faithful saints, the faithful holy ones. These aren’t two different groups of people; they are two sides of a single coin – two ways to describe believers in Jesus Christ.

And then we have the welcome line: Grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Not from Paul. Paul is only the messenger. He is taking on the role of an ambassador. He does not convey his own message, but the message of his King. More precisely he is conveying the single message of two person of the Trinity of God, the Father and the Son, who are in complete agreement as to the content of the message. And the message is a blessing, a blessing from God, of grace, and of peace. Grace is charis, and peace is eirene. With regards to charis, I want to read a pertinent definition from Strong’s Definitions, because it is so encouraging: “of the merciful kindness by which God, exerting His holy influence upon souls, turns them to Christ, keeps, strengthens, increases them in Christian faith, knowledge, affection, and kindles them to the exercise of the Christian virtues.” Wow! What a blessing! As you have probably heard, grace is “unmerited favor,” but that doesn’t say what the unmerited favor bestows or produces like this Strong’s definition. And Eirene has two definitions in Strong’s that I really like. Here is the first: “security, safety, prosperity, felicity, (because peace and harmony make and keep things safe and prosperous).” If you don’t know what felicity means, it means intense happiness, like a cat in catnip. Are these promises for this life? Wait, am I falling into the prosperity gospel? No. It all depends on how you define prosperity. Our prosperity, on the one hand, is far beyond what even any prosperity gospel teaches, but it is primarily our eternal prosperity. We don’t know what this world will bring, and indeed, for many early believers it brought poverty, persecution, and even martyrdom. But we are to be laying up treasures in heaven, not here. And with this in mind I also like another definition in Strongs: “the tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and content with its earthly lot, of whatsoever sort that is.” Grace and peace. This is Paul’s incredible blessing opening to the Book of Ephesians, not from Paul, but from God Himself. 

Now, today, we are to go through the first 14 verses of this letter. We have just read verses 1-2. Believe it or not, verses 3-14 in the Greek comprise a single sentence! All translations I have seen break this down into more manageable pieces, and we will do the same. Let us first look at verses 3-6: 

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will—to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves. – Eph. 1:3-6

Now I have underlined a few words here. And I have a simple question: Who is the “who” and the “He” and the “His”? It is the Father, is it not? For reasons we will see, I think this is worth pointing out.  

Now it is a terrible shame that some people are made uncomfortable by this passage because, they would say, they believe in free will. But this should not be. I don’t believe predestination and free will are mutually exclusive. I believe they are both true, and although it is hard for us to keep them simultaneously in our brains, the difference has to do with perspective. First of all, both are clearly presented in Scripture. God repeatedly calls on people to repent, in both the Old Testament and the New, in the New to repent and trust in Christ for salvation. But at the same time God repeatedly states that he knows what the outcome of every choice will be, and indeed this is a necessity if God is truly omniscient. It is important to remember that although God enters into time, He is not bound by it. And so, just like you can choose to jump to the last page of a book and read it first, so can He. But, you argue, the characters in books don’t have free will. True. So an analogy that maybe gets us a little closer is a simulation. In my research I have written many simulations, and they include randomness. Now randomness is not the same as free will either, but at least there is a sense that “participants” in the simulation can make decisions based on something that includes randomness, and yet, the author of the simulation (that’s me) can always choose to just look at the final results rather than “enter in” and watch the simulation unfold. 

Free will without predestination, it seems to me, would allow us to think of our decision to come to Christ as a “work” but we are not saved by works. Predestination without free will would mean that we have no responsibility for our decisions, so God could be accused of being unjust or unrighteous in His decision to punish those who refuse to turn to Him. But this is also clearly incorrect. And so, for me, I fully embrace that both are true and are each useful to understand different aspects of Christian truth. And even if I have trouble wrapping my head around them together, that’s just a problem with my head. Both, as I have said, are clearly proclaimed in Scripture.

And so, because of this, these verses are tremendously encouraging. The God of the universe, the Author of everything, has blessed us, has chosen us, has predestined us, and has given us. These are the verbs in the passage. Why has He blessed, chosen, predestined, and given us? Because He loves us. He loves us so much that He has had His Son Jesus die on the cross for us.

What did He bless us with? Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. What does that mean? Well, I certainly can’t give you an exhaustive list. I’m pretty sure it would be infinite. But let’s think of some examples. I need more capacity to love. I’m pretty sure that’s included. I need more peace. That’s in there too. I need more joy. That too. Patience? Yep. Hope? Yep. Contentment? That too. Hopefully you get the idea. 

Now as for choosing us, there should be two questions: When did He choose us and what did He choose us for? When I was a little kid I always wanted to be chosen early in team sports when “captains” would pick out their teams, but being a kid who was pretty awful at sports, I was chosen pretty close to last, if not last outright. When that happens you don’t feel chosen at all. But – get this – God choose us before the Creation of the world! Wow – that’s pretty neat, don’t you think? It seems like He chose us even before He decided what color stripes the zebra would have. To use another analogy, I think about a fancy banquet. Imagining getting all dressed up for this banquet, even buying an expensive outfit just for the occasion, and coming to the banquet hall entrance, giving your name, and things become awkward as you cannot find your name tag on the table, and when you ask the people there, they look at the list and say there must be some kind of mistake, because you aren’t on the guest list. Well, that’s not going to happen here. There is a seat in that banquet hall with a table banner with your name on it that has been waiting for you as long as there has been a heaven and an earth. And you won’t even have to buy an outfit – even that is provided for you, as you will be wearing special wedding clothes from Christ Himself (see Matt. 22). 

And what did He choose us for?  He chose us to be holy and blameless in His sight. How are we supposed to do that? Not in our own power, of course. Christ’s own righteousness, which is perfect righteousness, is imputed, or ascribed, to us. For believers, when God looks at us, He does not see our unrighteousness, but Christ’s righteousness. And in our resurrected bodies we will also be healed of our divided minds; the part of us that still wants to sin, to rebel against God, will finally be gone, and we will truly be righteous, because we will be fully “in” Him.    

And what has He predestined us for? Adoption to sonship! This is incredible. With the example of Scripture, we call one another brothers and sisters, and this is true. But we won’t just be siblings; we will be sons and daughters of God Himself. In some sense, Christ will also be our brother. We are not just guests in heaven, we are children of the King of heaven. We will have the run of the place. Like most of this passage, I think we struggle to get even a hint of how awesome and amazing this is.

And what has He given us? “Glorious” grace. The word for glory here is doxa which has synonyms like magnificent, kingly, majestic, exalted. The grace of God given to us is a kingly gift, beyond comparison. God showers us with incredible blessings! Let’s continue in the passage. 

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. – Eph. 1:7-10

Now the passage overall still is primarily through the perspective of the Father, but the two underlined words refer to Christ, and indeed, this entire section focuses much more on what Christ has done and what this means for us. 

This is the gospel message. In Christ we are redeemed. The Greek word is apolytrosis, where apo can mean “out of” and lytron means ransom. So we are taken out of ransom. The C.S. Lewish book The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe illustrates the idea so well. In the story, Edmund betrays the “good guys” and ends up under the complete control of the evil queen, who reminds Aslan, a lion who serves as a Christ character, that Edmund cannot be taken from her by force, that because he has betrayed Aslan, Edmund belongs to her now. And so Aslan and the woman talk in privately, and Aslan agrees to die in Edmund’s place so that he can go free – that is what redemption is, and that is what Christ has done for us. This was the plan of God the Father, who willingly sent His Son to do this for us. 

Another analogy goes back to Roman times. In the Roman world, slavery was everywhere. There were many ways to become slaves. One was being part of a city or region that revolted against Rome or refused to become subjects of Rome when first approached – after it was clear that a diplomatic solution was impossible, Rome would send in their armies and slaughter those they couldn’t capture or who wouldn’t surrender, and the rest they would take in captivity to be slaves. Now imagine that you wanted to free one of these slaves. How could you do it? You would have to buy the slave for yourself and then set the slave free. This is lytron. And this is indeed our situation. We have not rebelled against Rome, but against God. And because God is perfectly holy and just, God cannot simply let us go free. A price must be paid. In the Old Testament, we had a picture of what was needed through the sacrifice of animals. The problem with this was that as soon as you sinned again, you were back in the same position of needing redemption. All of this was to illustrate that a much greater payment was needed, and God giving up His Son on the cross was an infinite payment, one that once for all, paid for all the sins of all who by faith accepted the gift of grace, redemption, that was offered to them. This gift is received not by works, but by faith.

I love that it says that God gave us redemption in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us. Given who God is, how much grace is that? If a poor person lavishes money on you, you aren’t going to get much. But if Bill Gates lavishes money on you, you are going to get a lot of money. If God, the Creator of the Universe, is going lavish God’s grace on us, how much grace are you going to get? An awful lot of grace. And that is what we have in Christ. The more we understand the depths of our sin and the holiness of God, the more we understand the heights of God’s generosity of grace. Lavish is not a word we use very often. It means completely and totally over the top, infinitely above expectations.   

What does to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ mean? There is a sense in which our redemption is now, when we repent and put our faith in Christ to save us, but there is also a sense of “not yet,” and this part of the passage is dealing with the “not yet.” We have the promise of redemption now, but redemption has not yet been put into effect. When will that happen? “When the times reach their fulfillment.” The Greek is more literally “when time is filled up,” pleroma. Picture a ship that you load with supplies and crew, more and more, until there is absolutely no more room. Now picture that more figuratively with time, such as having a giant hourglass – and pleroma is when the last grain of sand falls to the bottom. Other passages call this “at the end of the age.” 

And what happens then? All things in heaven and earth are brought to unity under Christ. All who were unredeemed, people and demons, will be sent away, and all people who were redeemed along with those angels who remained faithful will be brought together, and Christ will be King of kings and Lord of lords over them all. It is at this point that our redemption will move from being a sure promise to a physical, experiential reality.  How amazing is that?

Let’s look at the next part of today’s passage:

In Him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of His glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. – Eph. 1:11-13a 

When I read this passage, part of me wants to ask, “Wasn’t there an easier way for God to accomplish what He wanted?” Bear with me, but this reminds me of the news people and protesters who say that Israel is committing genocide on the Palestinians in Gaza. No, Israel is not committing genocide. If Israel wanted to do that, they could be done with it in a short amount of time, as Gaza is a really small place. No, Israel is doing something much harder – they are trying to save as many people as possible while still bringing about justice. And doing this comes at a tremendous price to Israel. 

Again, bear with me – I am not saying that Israel is like Jesus – they are a nation that has many problems, including the quite important fact that their leaders largely do not believe in God and are trusting – and have continued to trust – in their “chariots and horses” instead of the Lord. But there is a comparison to be made – God could be perfectly just and wipe out every sinner. But God chooses to do something much harder, something that comes at an unthinkable price to God – to redeem as many people as possible. 

And so here Paul recaps his previous ideas, making it personal. He says that he himself, along with the other disciples, were chosen by God, predestined, and God carried out His shocking will, sending Jesus His beloved Son to die, so that he, Paul, and the other disciples could be the first to be redeemed, through their faith in Christ. And then Paul tells his letter readers, not just in Ephesus, but everywhere, and not just in the generation of Paul, but in every successive generation including us here right now, that we too are among those that Christ has redeemed through faith. All praise to the glory of God! And indeed this is the gospel – the good news – of our salvation. The Greek word for gospel is euangelion, coming from two words, eu, meaning good, and angel which is our word angel, which means a messenger from God. The gospel is the good message from God. It is the message of our salvation – it is what saves us from the consequences we deserve, the consequences of our sin against our Creator. 

And the final section of today’s passage:

When you believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of His glory. – Eph. 1:13b-14

Remember that the perspective of this passage has shifted from the Father at first, to more focus on the Son, and now, to the Holy Spirit. Let’s talk about concept of a seal. An example of a seal is in Daniel 6, when the king throws Daniel into the hungry lions’ den overnight. Vs. 17 says, “A stone was brought and placed over the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the rings of his nobles, so that Daniel’s situation might not be changed.” Because the king was the highest authority, nobody had the authority to open the den other than the king himself, which he did the next morning after discovering that Daniel was alive. If you recall the king was kind of tricked into this, and regretted putting Daniel into that den. But another example is probably Jesus’ tomb. Matt. 27:66 tells us “So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.” What was this seal? There are reasons to think it was a combination of rope and mud or wax. To open the tomb would require disturbing the seal. The practice back then, like that of Daniel’s time, was to imprint the seal with the mark of the authority of Rome so that anyone who disturbed the seal would know that they would face death for doing that. Of course, the angel of the Lord that rolled away the stone answered to a higher authority, so he didn’t really care about the seal.

The point is that we have such a seal as a promise that redemption is sure for us! This seal is the Holy Spirit, which as the third Person of the Trinity, means that our seal is “imprinted” with the authority of God Himself! Seals are also used as a sign of completion of a transaction. An example of this in the Bible is Jeremiah 32, where Jeremiah buys a field, in obedience to a vision from God. Vs. 10 says that he paid for it and signed and sealed the deed. And I believe there is an application of this here in Ephesians - it says that the Holy Spirit is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. That is, it promises that the transaction is finished, that the “field” (in this case, us), is truly bought and paid for. I suppose a third idea of a seal is that it bears a unique “signature” of the person conducting the sealing or completing the transaction. In our case, the Holy Spirit, as a Person in the Trinity, bears the signature of God Himself. 

But this passage describes the Holy Spirit as more than a seal – the Holy Spirit is also a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. To explain this I go back to the Scriptural description of the wedding supper of the Lamb. We are the bride of Christ. Do we know exactly what this means? No, as I think it is a picture of a deeper reality. But it serves us well here. If you are a man promising to marry a woman, you give her a kind of deposit guaranteeing her future marriage. What do you give her? Today it is a ring. In the Bible it would be given to the family of the future bride. In Genesis, Jacob wanted to marry Rachel but was not wealthy enough to give the bride price that Laban would have required, so he instead offered to work for Laban for seven years. 

We are the promised bride of Christ. And we could say that God provides an extravagant bride price: He gives us the Holy Spirit. This is what it means that the Holy Spirit is a “deposit  guaranteeing” our inheritance until that future day of redemption/the wedding.

Of course, the Holy Spirit is so much more than this – He is an ever-present help to us, a teacher, a companion, our helper, one who prays for us when we don’t know what to pray. The result (fruit) of his work in our life is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. He fills us, and He reveals God’s truth to us. And yet, this passage only describes Him as a seal and a promise. If the seal/promise is this great, we cannot even begin to imagine how great the end of days will be when our redemption is experienced in full.