Ephesians – the Church in the Heavenlies

A Practical Study of Ephesians

By: Tom Adcox

1. The current work is not intended to be an exposition of Ephesians. I am not qualified to write an exposition of Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians. I do not know if anyone is. T. Austin-Sparks says that Ephesians is the greatest document ever written. I do not know if that is true, but it is certainly a very great document. This work is meant to set forth a particular aspect of the church that is dealt with all too little. It sets forth the church, not as it is in the world, but as it is in God’s mind. God has always existed. He is eternal. That means that he had no beginning. From eternity he has had a concept of the church. The Lord Jesus, the Son of God, came to this earth in human form to die for the sins of man, to be raised from the dead, and to bring to birth the church by the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

The original thought of the church in God’s mind, of course, is not what we see in the world today. There is only one church, yet we see a multitude of denominations, all of them calling themselves by different names, the Lutheran Church, the Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Methodist Church, and on and on it goes. None of these are churches. They are denominations. There are no denominations in the Bible. There is just the church. Individual expressions of the church are local bodies which together make up the one church. No local church or denomination conforms fully to God’s thought of the church. We are finite, human sinners, saved to be sure, but not perfect, so we do not have perfect churches.

The purpose of the present exposition is an effort to see the church as it is in the mind of God from eternity. It is my belief that in the thousand-year reign of Christ and on into eternity we will see the church actually lived out according to God’s mind.

We turn now to the epistle itself. It begins with Paul’s usual greeting:

Paul, apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, to the saints who are {in Ephesus} and faithful in Christ Jesus, ²grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

You may know that the words “in Ephesus” do not appear in some of the ancient Greek manuscripts. It is thought that the letter was intended by Paul to be a circular letter to be passed around to more than one local church. In Col. 4.16 we read that Paul instructed the Colossians to send his letter to them on to the church in Laodicea and to read his letter to the Laodiceans. Ephesians may be another example along this line. That is not relevant to our current study, but needs to be noted for a full understanding of the circumstances.

We come now to v. 3:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who having blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ,

The title of this work is Ephesians – The Church in the Heavenlies. Here is the first of five occurrences of this word “heavenlies” in Ephesians (1.3, 20, 2.6, 3.10, 6.12). The word “heavenlies” refers, not to Heaven, but to the entire spiritual world, good and evil. Eph. 6.12 speaks of the “the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies.” The word is an adjective. Probably the best translation is “heavenly places.” Since the Greek text does not have “places,” just “heavenlies,” I choose to stick with the one word.

Paul writes that we have “every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.” The first point is that our blessings as Christians are spiritual. The Old Testament teaches that if the Jewish people were faithful and obedient to God, they would have material blessings. Dt. 7.12-15 reads,

And it will come to pass, because you listen to these ordinances and keep and do them, that I AM your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy which he swore to your fathers, ¹³ and he will love you and bless you and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the young of your flock, in the land which he swore to your fathers to give you. ¹⁴ You will be blessed above all peoples. There will not be male or female barren among you or among your cattle. ¹⁵ And I AM will take away from you all sickness, and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you know, will he put on you, but will lay them on all those who hate you.

In the New Testament, or properly the New Covenant, our blessings are spiritual. We may have much material blessing, but Christians are not guaranteed material blessings. Many Christians in the world have very little materially, but are faithful to God anyway. And virtually all of us know suffering of one kind or another.

These spiritual blessings are “in the heavenlies in Christ.” Christ is bodily in Heaven, not on earth. He is here by the Holy Spirit, but we await his bodily return at the end of this age. We inhabit two worlds at present, this world and the heavenlies. We enjoy our blessings on earth, but they are heavenly, spiritual, not of the earth. That is, as Paul wrote in his greeting, we know grace and peace. As he wrote in Gal. 5.22-23, we know love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. We know the presence of God in our hearts. We know his comfort, his counsel, his exhortation, his encouragement, his advocacy when we are accused by Satan. All of this is spiritual, not of the earth. We know them in the heavenlies in Christ. The question is, Are we living out these heavenly blessings on this earth?

Next Paul writes in v. 4, “… just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world for us to be holy and unblemished before him.” We said that God’s concept of the church is eternal. Here we see that we were chosen before the foundation of the world, when there was only the spiritual and nothing material, including no people. Ephesians is not about the church on earth as it is now, though I am sure that it is the will of God that it be according to his eternal concept. It is about that eternal concept. We were chosen to be holy and unblemished, as the Lord Jesus was and is the unblemished Lamb of God. I would say that we are being sanctified, that is, made holy. (Holy and sanctified mean exactly the same thing: holy is from Old English and sanctified is from Latin. The words are interchangeable.) We are being made holy, or being sanctified, but how many of us can say that we are finally holy? Are we unblemished, sinless, as the Lord Jesus was? Hardly. But in God’s sight we are holy and unblemished. He sees us as the church in the heavenlies, his eternal thought.

Some interpreters of the New Testament believe that the words “in love” belong with v. 4, and others, v. 5. Remember that the chapters and verses were added to the Bible hundreds of years after it was written. It seems to me that they fit better with v. 5: “… in love ⁵having predestined us for son-placing through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.” What does son-placing mean? The Greek word is usually translated “adoption,” but the literal meaning is “son-placing.” Many teach that we as Christians have been adopted by God. Let me say emphatically that we are not adopted by God! We are born of God (Jn. 3.3, 5-7, 1 Pt. 1.3, 23). Son-placing has nothing to do with our being born again into God’s family. It has to do with our place of responsibility in the millennial kingdom of God. Rom. 8.23 says that “we groan in ourselves awaiting son-placing, the redemption of our body.” Son-placing is something that comes at the end of this age, when Christ returns, not when we are born again. In love God predestined us for that.

In the same way, predestination has nothing to do with being saved. It is for Christians. Paul tells us in Rom. 8.29 that God predestined that those whom he foreknew would be saved should be conformed to the image of his Son. No one is predestined for hell. That is each person’s choice. We all have free will. This is all based on God’s foreknowledge, not on predestination.

In Rom. 8.15 and Gal. 4.6 Paul writes of the Spirit of son-placing. That is one of our spiritual blessings. It is the longing that God puts into our hearts for our heavenly home and the redemption of our bodies and our place of responsibility in the kingdom at the end of this age. No, we are not adopted by God, we are born of God and given a Spirit of son-placing, that longing for Heaven.

Paul continues in vs. 4-5: “according to the good pleasure of his will, ⁶to the praise of the glory of his grace which he bestowed on us in the Beloved….” God’s eternal concept of the church and his will and purpose were established according to his own good pleasure. The word for “good pleasure” literally means “seems good.” God made his plans according to what seems good to him, and I think that what seems good to him is indeed good. And it is good for us, too. In love he predestined us. He loves us. What he plans is for our good as well as for his own pleasure.

The result is the praise of his glory. Everything that God does resounds to praise for himself. That would be a selfish purpose if it were our desires, but God is not self-centered. When praise and glory come to him, good comes to us who praise him. The reason is that God is the only being who deserves praise and worship. It is good for us to worship him because he is worthy of it. (The word worship is based on the word worthy.) When we declare his worthiness, he blesses us. It is grace, “which he bestowed on us in the Beloved.” The Beloved is the Lord Jesus. He sent him to this world for our good, but also to establish his own plans, for they are intertwined. God’s wants a people for his name (Acts 15.14) and we need the blessing of God. This is what is called a win-win situation. All of this is spiritual blessing, according to his eternal concept of the church.

Turning to vs. 7-8 we find redemption:  “⁷… in whom we have redemption….” The eternal plan of God for the church did not include redemption. We might say that God’s eternal plan is a straight line. He made man with the purpose of proving man’s faithfulness and obedience to him, which would result at some point in man taking his place in God’s kingdom and helping to carry out his wishes for eternity. God has many plans that we have no concept of and that will take us through eternity, a constant unfolding of the mind and creativity of God.

The test which would prove man’s faithfulness and obedience was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If man had obeyed God and not eaten of that tree, at some point God would have declared him proven and would have moved on with his plans. But man had free will, a necessity if there was to be proof of his faithfulness and obedience. It was a real test. Man could choose. And he chose to disobey, plunging all creation into a fallen condition, with all the miserable results that we see down to this day. Thus God had to put his eternal plan on hold and bring in redemption. That straight line was interrupted and another line goes down from it to the fallen earth and God’s plan of redemption.

Redemption was not an afterthought, a Plan B that God had to come up with because of man’s failure. God knew that man would fall and was prepared. Rev. 13.8 tells us that the Lord Jesus was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. He is God’s answer to man’s fall: “redemption through his blood, forgiveness when we fall into sin, according to the riches of his grace ⁸which he caused to abound to us in all wisdom and prudence….” When we turn to the Lord Jesus for the forgiveness which he provides, the line starts back up. We were dead in spirit (Eph. 2.1) because of our sins, but our spirits are made alive by a new, spiritual birth ((Jn. 3.3, 5-7, 1 Pt. 1.3, 23), a birth from above, by the Holy Spirit coming into our dead spirits with new life. We begin an upward journey toward Heaven. We begin our life in the heavenlies by this new birth. We are living in that spiritual world.

This redemption and this forgiveness are given to us by the riches of God’s grace. They are free gifts, not something we can gain by our works. With this new birth God caused wisdom and prudence to abound in us as we grow in him. It was Adam and Eve’s great foolishness and thoughtlessness that chose disobedience, and that has been our experience, too. But when we are born again the Holy Spirit brings the spiritual blessings of wisdom and prudence into our lives. Wisdom is knowing what to do. Many people have a lot of knowledge, but do not know what to do with it. Many are imprudent, not thinking ahead, such as the five imprudent virgins of Mt. 25. I suppose the wisdom and prudence do not come full-grown when we are born again, but they grow in us as we walk with the Lord. This is a spiritual blessing from God. How foolish and short-sighted the world is in all its pursuits for the things of this world. How blessed we are to have spiritual wisdom and prudence. This is the church in the heavenlies.

To the world God is a great mystery, if he exists at all. One of Satan’s greatest tools is religion. He has millions enslaved in religion, worshipping demons which they think are gods, or knowing that they are demons but living in such fear of them that they do what they think the demons want in order to appease them. There have been such things as human sacrifice, even child sacrifice. What a sorry story is the history of religion. It does not bring people to God, but to the observation of rites that they are told will save them.That is still the case today, even in some so-called Christian groups. We are not saved by observing rites or by any works, but by grace through faith.

But Paul says in v. 9, “… having made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in him….” One of the greatest blessings we have is the word of God and its recording of the words of the prophets and other authors of the Bible. We do not have to go to a priest and ask him what God wants. Peter tells us that all Christians are priests (1 Pt. 2.5 and 9). We can all go into the Holy of Holies, the very presence of God, and inquire of him ourselves. Indeed, we live in the Holy of Holies. We are always in the presence of God, and he is present in us. In this Bible, this treasure, he has “made known to us the mystery of his will.” What is the mystery of his will?

“The mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in him ¹⁰for an administration of the fullness of the times: to sum up all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth, in him….” The Jews of New Testament days, including the disciples of the Lord Jesus right up to Pentecost, were expecting an earthly kingdom centered on the throne of David in Jerusalem (Acts 1.6). There will be an earthly kingdom under the Lord Jesus, but there will be far more than that. All things, in the heavens and on the earth, will be summed up or headed up in Christ. The heavens, from our perspective, include everything outside the earth, including Heaven itself and the spiritual world and the material universe. The Jews had little concept of Heaven. Other than it being the dwelling place of God there is not much said about it in the Old Testament. There is no thought of going to Heaven at death, but rather to sheol, the place of the dead. Judaism was largely earth-centered. And the Jews had no access to God. He was dwelling in a building that no one but priests could enter, and even then only the High Priest could go into the very presence of God, and that only on one day a year, on Yom Kippur.  Now through Paul God reveals a whole new concept, the summing up of all things in Christ. Col. 3.11 says that Christ will be all and in all. In the kingdom of God there will be no division, but perfect unity, with Christ dwelling in and being the life of everyone.

He is that spiritually now. We are in Christ. That term “in Christ” is used about seventy times in the New Testament. We are in him and he is in Heaven. We are the church in the heavenlies now, as well as the church on earth.

The mystery of his will is “according to his good pleasure,” according to what seems good to God. This purpose according to his good pleasure has to do with an economy or administration of the fullness of the times. This idea of the fullness of the times is important in the Bible.

In Gen. 15.12-16 we have the story of God telling Abraham that the Israelites would be slaves in Egypt for 400 years. Ex. 12.40 makes it more exact at 430 years. V. 16 says, “And in the fourth generation they will come here again, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full.” The point is that God does things in the fullness of the times. He could not justly judge the Amorite until their iniquity had reached fullness.

The New Testament picks up this theme in Mk. 1.15: The Lord Jesus says, “The time has been fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near.” The word for time in this verse is not the word for the ordinary passage of time, day after day, week after week, and so on, chronos, from which we get “chronology.” It is the word kairos, an opportune time, a particular time when it is time for God to act. It was God’s time for the kingdom of God to come near to his people in the person of his Son.

Lk. 21.24 shows another such time: “And all Jerusalem will be trodden down by Gentiles until the times of the Gentles be fulfilled.” This passage refers to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70 and perhaps also in A.D. 134-135 and the scattering of the Jews into all the nations. They have indeed been scattered all over the world until this day, though we are now seeing a return of many to the state of Israel established in 1948. The “times of the Gentiles” are the times in which the Gentiles have ruled over the Jews. Some would say that the times of the Gentiles ended in 1948. Others would say that those times will not be over until the coming of the Lord Jesus at the end of this age, for Jerusalem will yet be trodden underfoot by Gentiles again as we see in Zech. 13-14. Our point here is that there will be a fullness of the times when Gentile rule will be ended by God.

Rom. 11.25 also refers to the Gentiles: “For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, that you may not be wise in yourselves, that a hardness in part has come to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.” Acts 15.14 tells us that “Simeon has related that God first visited to take out of the Gentiles a people for his name.” One of God’s priorities in this age is to take out of the Gentiles a people for his name. When the number of those Gentiles has been reached, the fullness of the Gentiles has come, and God will initiate the end of this age, the day of the Lord.

In Jn. 7.8, the Lord Jesus says to his brothers, “You go up to the festival. I am not going up to this festival, because my time has not yet been fulfilled.” There is a time designated by God that must be fulfilled before the Lord Jesus will go to the cross.

We read in Gal. 4.4, “⁴But when the fullness of the time came God sent forth his Son….” Certain things had to take place before God sent the Lord to this earth, as we saw in Mk. 1.15.

In his greeting in his letter to Titus, Paul wrote that God had made promises “before times eternal,” but which “he revealed in his own time.” The word “times” in this statement is the Greek word chronos, which we saw above means the ordinary passage of time, from eternity past in this case, but the word “time” in “God’s own time” is kairos again, the word for a proper time, a special time, in God’s plan. God had made promises all through the Old Testament, but they were not fulfilled until the proper time came, and many of his promises have not yet been fulfilled, but will be at the end of this age and into the millennium and eternity.

God is looking for fullness.

So we come back to Eph. 1.10, “… for an administration of the fullness of the times [kairos], to sum up all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth, in him….” It is God’s plan to sum up everything in his Son, that he may be “all and in all,” as Col. 3.11 puts it. God’s Son is what he is all about. But we will see in Eph. 2 that Christ is already seated in the heavenlies and we are seated with him there. Keep in mind that we are dealing with spiritual truth. The summing up of all things in Christ is a spiritual reality now, though we do not see it now on earth.

This present reality is brought out in v. 11: “… in whom we also received an inheritance….” From our earthly view we have not yet received our inheritance, which we will have in the millennial kingdom, but from God’s heavenly view we have already received it. We are the church in the heavenlies. The verse continues, “…having been predestined according to the purpose of the one who works all things according to the counsel of his will….” We saw above that we have been predestined for son-placing, and this predestination includes our inheritance in the kingdom. This predestination is according to God’s purpose, and he, the almighty, is able to make whatever he wants to come to pass. It is a certainty.

V. 12 adds, “…for us to be for the praise of his glory who first hoped in Christ….” All of this is for the glory of God. I take it that those who first hoped in Christ were those disciples and apostles and other Jewish believers at the first. “Salvation is of the Jews” (Jn. 4.22).

V. 13-14 read,

… in whom you also, having heard the word of the truth, the good news of your salvation, in which also having had faith you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise, ¹⁴who is the earnest of our inheritance for the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory.”

Paul is writing to Gentiles, those who were not among the first to believe. Peter and Paul were used by God to take the good news to the Gentiles to call out that people for his name. He tells them that they, having had faith at the preaching of the good news, were also “sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise.” As we will see in Eph. 2, Jews and Gentiles are made into one new man in Christ. There is no separation. Paul writes in 1 Cor. 10.32 that there are three kinds of people in the world, Jews, Gentiles, and the church of God. Jews are Jews who are not believers in Christ. Gentiles are Gentiles who are not believers in Christ. Christians are neither Jew nor Gentile, though they were before they trusted Christ, but the church, those who are sealed with the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit of the promise. Gentiles who have become Christians have the same promises as the Jews have, except that our promises are spiritual, not material, in this age, as we saw. And we have his promise of an inheritance in the kingdom.

V. 14 tells us of the Holy Spirit, “who is the earnest of our inheritance for the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory.” We are familiar with earnest money, money paid as a guarantee that someone would pay the full price for a house or other property when the deal closes. That money is forfeited if the buyer backs out and does not pay in full, or refunded if the deal does not go through. The Holy Spirit is our earnest money. He is God’s assurance that we will receive all his promises in the kingdom.

We are the purchased possession that the Lord Jesus bought with his precious blood (1 Cor. 6.20, 1 Pt. 1.18-19). We still live in this world during this age, but the Holy Spirit is the earnest that we will be fully redeemed from all the evil of this age in the kingdom. We saw that Rom. 8.23 says that “we groan in ourselves awaiting son-placing, the redemption of our body.” The Holy Spirit is the earnest that redemption will be done as promised. The fulfillment of this promise will result in glory to God. He keeps his word.

In vs. 15-23 Paul begins to give the Ephesians instruction on how to deal with the realities of this world. We are already with Christ in the heavenlies, but we also live in this body in this world. We saw that we inhabit two worlds. In this world there are all sorts of evil and suffering. How are we as the Lord’s people to deal with this reality?

Paul begins with v. 15-16: “Because of this I also, having heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love which is for all the saints, ¹⁶do not cease giving thanks for you, making mention in my prayers….” He tells us that he is praying for them. I think all of us have asked for prayer a multitude of times, as others have asked for prayer from us. We believe that God hears our prayers and will answer. He does not always answer the way we want, but he always answers. Many times his answer is to give us faith and endurance to keep trusting him even in the trial we are in. Paul tells us in 1 Thess. 5.18 to give thanks in everything for this is God’s will for us. The trials that God allows in our lives are there for a purpose, his purpose. If we will submit to him and trust in him in the trial, he will use it for our good (Rom. 8.28). The ultimate good is conforming us to the image of Christ (Rom. 8.29), making us fit for a place of responsibility in his kingdom. Just as an athlete suffers in training for his sport so that he will be able to do his best, so does God use the difficulties we go through to train us for ruling with his Son in the kingdom (2 Tim. 2.12).

Then he gets specific about his prayer:

… that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of him, ¹⁸the eyes of your heart being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints….

How we do need “the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of him.” All of us have asked, “Why, God?” Why do we have to go through so much that is painful, physically or emotionally or perhaps even spiritually? I think many Christians believe that God’s job is to take care of us and get us out of all our trials. He would say that he got us into the trial for a purpose! As we have been seeing, he uses our trials to strengthen and mature us. Why do we discipline our children? So they will not be spoiled brats who will ruin their lives! We want to prepare them for the realities of life. That is what God is doing with us. As Hebrews puts it,

My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline or give up, being rebuked by him, ⁶for whom the Lord loves he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives.” [Prov. 3.11-12] ⁷For discipline you endure. God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? ⁸But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, you are illegitimate and not sons. ⁹Furthermore we had fathers of our flesh, disciplinarians, and we respected them. Will we not much more be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? ¹⁰For they were disciplining for a few days as seeming good to them, but he for the benefiting for us to receive of his holiness. ¹¹Now all discipline at the time does not seem to be joy, but sorrow, but later it yields the fruit of righteousness that makes for peace to those having been trained by it. (12.5-11)

God is our Father. A father disciplines his children. We need discipline!

Then Paul adds that he prays for “the eyes of your heart being enlightened.” The eyes of our hearts. That is spiritual vision. That is the ability to understand why God does what he does and to submit to him in it. We may not understand the specifics, but we will know that God is working for our good.

He continues by writing “that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints….” What is the hope of his calling? It is what we have been saying, our inheritance in the kingdom. This world is not the end of the story. We have his promises of a place in his millennial kingdom and on into eternity. The Jewish people of the Old Testament had God’s promise of an inheritance. That inheritance was the promised land. Each family had an inalienable lot of land to pass down to the family. The land was, and is, everything to the Jews. As we will see more fully in Eph. 3, Christ is our land. We have a lot in him, an inalienable lot. We are in Christ now spiritually. We will be in him forever. That is our hope.

Then Paul mentions “his, God’s, inheritance.” God has an inheritance in us! How can that be? Why would he want an inheritance in the likes of us? That is a part of why he is working on us in this age, disciplining us, making us fit to be in his kingdom. He wants a people, a bride for his Son (Eph. 5). I personally believe that not all Christians will be a part of the bride of Christ. See the five foolish virgins in Mt. 25. The letters to the seven churches in Rev. 2-3 speak of overcomers. The overcomers are Christians who are faithful and obedient to God in this age. They will receive the blessings promised in those letters. Those who do not overcome because of lack of full surrender to and service of God will be saved, but so as by fire, as 1 Cor. 3.15 has it. God give us grace to be fully surrendered to him, faithful and obedient.

Paul continues with v. 19: “and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who have had faith according to the working of the might of his strength….” The power, the might, the strength of God! These are our assurance that God can keep his promises. It is easy to make a promise and God has here made some vast promises. Can he make good on them? Of course he can. He is almighty. Vs. 20-21 show the greatest example of his power: “which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenlies, ²¹far above all rule and authority and power and lordship and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come….” He resurrected a dead man. Modern medicine has been able to restore to life some who have died, but this after only a very short time of death. And it is restoration to this life. The one brought back from the dead will die again unless the Lord Jesus returns first. Resurrection is different from resuscitation, the restoring of a person to this life. Only God can resurrect, raise a person from the dead with a new kind of life, an incorruptible body that will never die again. Resurrection is God’s trump card, we might say. It is the apex of his power. But in addition to that he seated Christ ”at his right hand in the heavenlies, far above all rule and authority and power and lordship and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come….” These authorities, powers, and lordshipsare spiritual beings, archangels, angels, demons, Satan. Christ is above each of them and all of them put together. The power of our God and his Son is limitless and is our guarantee that he can do what he says he will do.

In addition, “he subjected all things under his feet and gave him to be Head over all things to the church, ²³which is his body, the fullness of the one filling all in all,” Everything but the Father himself is subject to him. And this is to the church. The church is to reign with Christ in the millennial kingdom and on into eternity. And this is a spiritual reality now. Christ has been, not will be, exalted to God’s right hand in the heavenlies. And we are in Christ. We are spiritually the church in the heavenlies now. And the church “is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all in all.” The church is the body of Christ with him as the Head and we as the members of the body. We are one body with Christ. We do not see that now in this world with all the divisions, as Paul refers to in 1 Cor. 1.13: “Has Christ been divided?” NO! All the divisions are of man. In God’s mind and sight there is one undivided body. And just as a wife is intended by God to be the fullness of her husband – “It is not good for the man to be alone” – so is the bride the fullness of Christ. And he fills all in all. He fills us. He fills the universe.

Such is our God.

2. Chapter 2 of Ephesians is actually a continuation of chapter 1. There should be a comma after the last word of chapter 1. You may have noticed that Ephesians 1 is virtually one long sentence, as though Paul had ideas coming so fast that he could not stop. That continues through 2.1-3, which are all part of the sentence of chapter 1. It should actually be printed,

… and you, being dead in your trespasses and sins, ²in which you once walked according to the age of this world, according to the ruler of the authority of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience, ³in which we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, doing the wishes of the flesh and of the thoughts, and were children by nature of wrath, as also the rest.

We said that we live in two worlds, this material world and the spiritual world. And this world is ruled by spirits, good and evil. God is sovereign over all, but he allows Satan and his forces to operate in this present evil age (Gal. 1.4) as a means of testing people and of trying his own people by fire to purify and mature us. The world thinks it operates on its own, but Satan is the ruler of this world (Jn. 12.31, 14.30, 16.11) and the god of this age (2 Cor. 4.4). He is a spirit who works in the sons of disobedience, largely without their knowing it. Many scoff at the very idea of Satan. He is in the atmosphere around the world as well as on the earth. He is the tempter, appealing to our fleshly lusts, and lust can refer to anything, not just sexual lust. We have lust for money, power, adoration, and so on. Satan appeals to both our fleshly bodies and to our thoughts. Those who submit to his temptations are by nature children of wrath. We all were that before we came to the Lord. We are born in sin, with a sin nature that causes acts of sin. Our real problem is not sins, but the sin nature, the flesh, the old man, that causes sins. That is the world we live in, and we have all participated.

“But God.” One of the loveliest phrases in language. Eph. 2.1-3 paints a very grim picture. We have all been ruled by Satan. Is there any hope? “But God.” “⁴But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, ⁵even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive with Christ (by grace you have been saved)….” God knew from eternity past, as we have said, that we would fall into sin and need redemption, and he had a plan to deal with that situation. We saw that the Lord Jesus is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. God was prepared for our fall with a sacrificial Lamb who would take away the sins of all who would trust in him and save us from the penalty and power, and ultimately the presence, of sin. This came about because God is love, full of grace, love that we do not deserve. We were spiritually dead, but God made us alive with Christ, by grace.

Now we come to one of the great statements of this epistle, indeed of the whole Bible, and the heart of the current study of Ephesians: “⁶and raised us with him and seated us with him in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus….” The Bible, and especially Rom. 6, teaches that when the Lord Jesus died, we died with him (Rom. 6.2-7, Gal. 2.20, Col. 3.11-12, 3.3). This is a spiritual matter, of course. We still live physically. Eph. 4.22-24 and Col. 3.10-11 tell us that we, having died with Christ and been raised up with him, are to put off the old man and put on the new man. The old man is our flesh, our sin nature. The new man is our redeemed self with a spirit made alive toward God by new birth. The important point that we want to see here is that spiritually and in God’s sight we have died with Christ on the cross and have been raised up with him and are seated with Christ in the heavenlies. We are the church in the heavenlies.

If that is the case, then why do we go through all the difficulties in this world, our struggles with our own flesh and sins, the temptations we have to deal with, the sufferings of all kinds that we go through, the grieving over all the evil that we see around us?

Our being seated with Christ in the heavenlies is what is called positional truth. That is a spiritual reality, the way God sees us. But as we noted, we live in two worlds, the spiritual world, the heavenlies, and this world in this present evil age. Then there is conditional truth, the coming into reality in our experience now of positional truth. We are seated with Christ in the heavenlies. We are to make that our experience in this world. We do that by faith first of all, standing on what God says is true – we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Then we are to live on that basis. In Phil. 2.12 Paul writes,   “Therefore my beloved ones, as you always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, with fear and trembling work out your own salvation….” That does not mean that we are to try to save ourselves, but that we have been saved and are to live on that basis, to apply it to our daily living. And we are not alone in this. The next verse says, “…for God is the one working in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” As we yield ourselves to God step by step and live according to the fact that we have been saved, we find that God is also working in us to empower us to live in faith and obedience to his will. What we already are in Christ becomes what we are as we live in this world.

Probably most of us live as though we are stuck in the mire of this world and we are looking up to God for help. Paul is saying that we are in Christ in the heavenlies and we should live as though we are there looking down on this world. See ourselves from God’s perspective. We are already in victory in Christ and we are to live out that victory in this world. We will see more of this in Eph. 6. For now, be aware that we are the church in the heavenlies.

In v. 7 Paul writes, “…that he may show in the ages to come the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” What is true now about our being in the heavenlies in Christ God will make evident to every being in the universe in the ages to come. Just as a groom is thrilled with his new bride, so will Christ show us off in his kingdom as his bride, the evidence of God’s grace and kindness. He has already shown his grace and kindness in Christ Jesus by the fact that Christ came to this world to make all this possible, but in the age to come it will be obvious to all. It may not look that way now, but it is true nonetheless and one day will be open for all the worlds to see.

Then comes one of the favorite passages of Scripture, vs. 8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of you. It is God’s gift, ⁹not of works, that no one may boast.” The tower of Babel that men tried to build up to Heaven shows man trying to save himself without God, but this is an impossibility. We cannot save ourselves, and we do not deserve salvation. No one can say, “I ought to be saved because of my own righteousness and good works.” Isaiah says that all our righteous deeds are as filthy rags, and what lost man calls good works the Bible calls dead works (Heb. 6.1, 9.14). We deserve nothing but hell, BUT GOD, in his grace has provided salvation for us if we will only trust in him and accept that salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. We had absolutely no hope, no hope, BUT GOD!

V. 10 reads, “For you are his doing, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we may walk in them.” What we are as Christians is not our own doing. We could not save ourselves and we cannot make ourselves what we ought to be as Christians. It is the power of God that enables us. Whatever there is of good in us is his doing. And he has prepared for us, not dead works, but good works, that we may walk in them. We do not do these good works to save ourselves, but because we have been saved and we want to serve God out of gratitude and love toward him for what he has done for us. We are to apply in our daily life what we are in Christ.

Paul next turns to what is one of the loveliest passages in Scripture, one of the great passages of the grace of God, one that should bring us to our knees in gratitude. We noted earlier that there are three kinds of people in the world, Jews, Gentiles, and the church of God. To a large extent, Gentiles were outcasts to the Jews. The Jews saw themselves as the people of God, chosen by him, and the Gentiles as beneath them. A Gentile could become a proselyte, a convert to Judaism, but the rest were nothing. But God had something to say about that.

Is. 42.6 and 49.6 say that Jesus was intended by God to be a light to the nations or Gentiles (these two words are interchangeable). He was to take the knowledge of God to the Gentiles and to seek to bring them to him, just as God wants us as Christians to take the good news to the lost, Jew and Gentile. Jn. 4.22 says that salvation is of the Jews. I believe that this indicates that God wanted his ancient people, the Jews, to carry this light to the nations. As God said to Abaham in Gen 12.3, “… in you will all the families of the earth be blessed.” But instead they looked down on them and wanted to have nothing to do with them. They thought that contact with a Gentile would defile them. An example of this we see in Jn. 18.28: “So they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the Praetorium. Now it was early. And they did not enter into the Praetorium, that they might not be defiled, but could eat the Passover.” The Jews believed that if they contacted a Gentile they would be defiled and would not be able to partake of Passover.

Eph. 2.11-13 gives us God’s thought on this matter:

Therefore remember that once you Gentiles in the flesh, those called uncircumcision by what is called circumcision, made with hands in the flesh, ¹²that you were at that time separate from Christ, having been alienated from the people of Israel and strangers of the covenants of the promise, not having hope and without God in the world. ¹³But now in Christ Jesus you, the ones once being far off, came near by the blood of Christ.

“Uncircumcised” was a term of derision to the Jews. God looked on these uncircumcised Gentiles, separate from Christ, alienated from the people of Israel, strangers of the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God, and worked to bring them near by the blood of Christ. What grace! What love! What good news! These outcast Gentiles who were without hope in the world were brought into the church in the heavenlies. Those who are saved are no longer Gentiles, but Christians, as were the saved Jews.

Paul adds to this in vs. 14-16:

For he himself is our peace, the one having made both one and having broken down the dividing wall of the fence, the enmity, in his flesh, ¹⁵having annulled the law of the commandments in regulations that he might create the two in himself into one new man, making peace, ¹⁶and might reconcile both in one body to God through the cross, having put to death the enmity by it.

In one master stroke, in the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ, God made the two, Jews and Gentiles, one. Instead of having superior Jews and inferior Gentiles we have one new man, equal in Christ. Christ is our peace with each other. He broke down the dividing wall, the enmity, by the tearing of his flesh (see Mt. 27.51, Heb. 10.20). He annulled the law of the commandments in regulations. That is, he made plain what was always the truth, that we are saved by grace, not by law. Rom. 3.20 says, “Therefore by works of law will no flesh be justified before him.” See also Gal. 2.16. No Old Testament saint was saved by keeping the law (see Gen. 15.6). This does not mean that the law no longer exists. It is still valid. But Paul tells us in 1 Tim. 1.9 that the law is not for the righteous, but for the lawless. We do not keep the law to be saved, and indeed we do not go by law at all. If we are submitted to the Lord and walk with him in obedience, we will keep the law without even knowing it. By nature, our new nature, we automatically keep the law. Of course, we all fail and sin sometimes, but when that happens, we repent and continue our walk with the Lord.

We are reconciled in one body to God through the cross. The cross is what makes us one, for in it the enmity died, the sins of Jews and Gentiles were forgiven, and we were reconciled in Christ.

In v. 17 Paul writes that having come, Christ “… preached the good news, peace to you the ones far off and peace to the ones near.” This statement is a reference to Is. 57.19, which says, “Peace, peace, to him that is far off and to him that is near….” The Jews were near to God and the Gentiles were far from him. That is, the Jews were God’s chosen people. They had the tabernacle and then the temple where God dwelt. He was near. But they were only near. They could not go into the very presence of God in the Holy of Holies. Neither Jew nor Gentile had access to God himself. But v. 18 says, “… for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.” Now both Jews and Gentiles have direct access to God. Indeed we who are God’s people live in the Holy of Holies. We are always in the very presence of God. We have peace with one another and peace with God. We are the church in the heavenlies.

The Jews had the tabernacle and temple, but no one could go into it but a few priests, and no one could go into the very presence of God in the Holy of Holies except the High Priest one day a year. But now Paul introduces a wholly new concept. Not only can we go into the house of God, but we are the house of God! Vs. 19-22:

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, ²⁰having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, ²¹in whom all the building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy sanctuary in the Lord, ²²in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

Far from being strangers and aliens, the saved Gentiles, Christians, are now fellow citizens with the saved Jews, and both are members of the household of God. The foundation of the house is the Lord Jesus himself (1 Cor. 3.11). Eph. 2.20 speaks of “the foundation of the apostles and prophets.” By their work in spreading the good news of the Lord Jesus and building up of the church the apostles and prophets have shown that he is the foundation. And he is the cornerstone. The “cornerstone” is the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation. All other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure” (Wikipedia). And we are being built on this foundation into a house for God, and all of us who are being built on this foundation are set in relation to Christ. It is because we are in Christ that we are being built into our place in the house of God. This all comes about by the Holy Spirit who is in us to guide us in our walk with the Lord. Peter adds, “… to whom coming, a living stone, by men rejected, but with the Lord, chosen, precious, ⁵and you yourselves as living stones are being built a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pt. 2.4-5).

No longer strangers and aliens. A dwelling place of God in the Spirit. The church in the heavenlies.

Let me just say that I do not like to hear a building called a church. The church is not a building. The church is God’s people. He dwells in us. There may be a building where the church meets, or the church may meet in a house, as the New Testament reveals, or outdoors or anywhere. I cringe when someone calls a building the house of God. If God lives in a building, he must be awfully lonely most of the time! No, he dwells in his people.

3. We saw that the first chapter of Ephesians and on into the second chapter is virtually one sentence. It seems that Paul was writing furiously as the thoughts came rapidly to his mind and he could not find a stopping place. Now he begins chapter 3 with, “Because of this I Paul…,” but he never shows the object of the “Because.” We would expect, “Because of this I did this.” But that does not follow. That shows how the Lord’s inspiration of Paul was coming as though in a torrent. He says, “Because of this I Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles,” then changes the subject. He does say that he is the prisoner of Christ. He was apparently in a Roman prison when he wrote this letter, but he does not call himself the prisoner of Rome, but of Christ. He knew that wherever he was in life he was where God wanted him to be. He could say this because he was seated with Christ in the heavenlies. That is a good lesson for us. Most of us call on God when we get into an unpleasant place to get us out of it, but God got us into that place for a purpose. Or we got ourselves into it by not seeking the Lord or by disobedience to him. No, wherever we are we are prisoners of Christ Jesus. Seek him for what he wants to accomplish in us by having us in this place.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Then Paul turns to the matter of his stewardship: “…if indeed you heard of the stewardship of the grace of God having been given to me for you.” We read in Eph. 1.10 about “an administration of the fullness of the times.” Paul uses the same Greek word for both administration and stewardship. The word literally means the law or management of the house. From one standpoint it refers to the rules and principles as to how the house should be run. From another, it refers to the necessity for the administrator to be a good steward. In 1 Cor. 4.1-2 Paul writes that it is required in stewards that one be found faithful. The word for steward is oikonomos and the word for stewardship is oikonomia, literally, the law of the house. In Eph. 1.10 it is what will be the administration of the house or kingdom of God in the fullness of the times when the Lord Jesus returns. Here it is what is Paul’s stewardship of his ministry in his times. How will he administer his calling from God?

His stewardship is a stewardship of grace. God has sent his Son by grace to provide for the salvation of all who will trust in him as Savior. Paul is to administer this grace as an apostle, to preach the good news and to minister to the local churches that result by teaching them the ways of God. That is what the epistles of the New Testament largely are, instruction to the churches as to how to proceed in living as the Lord’s people. An example is Paul’s word to Timothy in his first epistle to him, chapter 3 and verse 15: “… but if I should delay, that you may know how it is necessary for one to conduct himself in God’s house,” that is among God’s people who are the house of God. Paul has been given a stewardship. He must be faithful in discharging it. His stewardship is not for himself, but “for you.”

This is all about how to live on this earth, in this present evil world and age, as the church in the heavenlies. We are seated with Christ in the heavenlies. How do we live this out on earth? That is a part of Paul’s stewardship, and we, too, are responsible to be good stewards of our being with Christ in the heavenlies. How are we doing in so living? Are we showing Christ in our living? Are we trusting God in our difficulties? Are we sharing the good news with others? Are we coming to the aid of those who are hurting? We have the most wonderful gift that ever could be given, the Lord Jesus Christ and our being seated with him in the heavenlies. What are we doing with it?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Paul continues in vs. 3-5:

… that according to revelation the mystery was made known to me, as I wrote before briefly, ⁴by which you are able, reading it, to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, ⁵which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men as it was now revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit….

We saw the mystery of God’s will in 1.9-10. Here we have the mystery of Christ. A mystery in the Bible is not like our modern-day murder mysteries that are so popular in fiction. In those the mystery is a secret that can be figured out with clues and clever thinking, and maybe a little of what the world calls luck. In the Bible a mystery is a secret that no one even knows exists. It is a secret in the mind of God. It must be revealed by him for us even to know that he has such a secret. One such secret is the mystery of which Paul is a steward, the mystery of Christ.

Notice that Paul says in v. 3 that his knowledge of the mystery was by revelation, not by clues and reasoning. He says that “in other generations [the mystery] was not made known to the sons of men as it was now revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit….” The mystery of Christ is the church. There is nothing in the Old Testament about the church. It is part of God’s eternal plan, but he did not reveal it until the coming of Christ. The Lord Jesus himself spoke of the church (Mt. 16.18, 18.17), but he did not define it or explain it. That was left to its revelation to the apostles and prophets by the Holy Spirit, and it is unfolded in Acts, the epistles, and Revelation.

A part of such unfolding occurs here in Ephesians. The first mention of the church in Ephesians is in 1.22: that Christ is “Head over all things to the church.” He is the Head of the church (Eph. 4.15, 5.23 Col. 1.18), but he is also Head over all things to the church. What a comfort to know that in this evil age when there is so much opposition to the things of God and so much persecution and suffering that Christ is Head over all. Nothing occurs without his permission (see Job 1.8-12). Everything that comes into our lives is intended by God to work out for our good (Rom. 8.28-29), even the hardships that mature and strengthen us and teach us obedience (Heb. 2.10, 5.8: even the Lord Jesus as a man had to be matured and to learn obedience by the things he suffered). Take comfort in his Headship.

Eph. 3.10 tells us “that the manifold wisdom of God may now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenlies through the church….” We will deal with this verse more fully when we come to it, but just know for now that the church is already a revelation in the kingdom and in eternity.

Eph. 3.21 says that the church will be glory to God eternally. More later.

The mystery of Christ, the church, is the subject of what we saw in 2.11-22, the fact of the church and its inclusion of the Gentiles in the body of Christ. It is the making of former enemies into one new man, but the church as including Jews and Gentiles is not there in the Old Testament. Here it is revealed.

Paul states that plainly here in Eph. 3.6: “… the Gentiles to be fellow heirs and fellow members of the same body and fellow partakers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the good news….” 1 Cor. 12.13 says that “… in one Spirit we all were baptized into one body whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” Gal. 3.28: “There is not Jew or Greek; there is not slave or free; there is not male and female, for you all are one in Christ Jesus.” Col. 3.11: “… there are not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, foreigner, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all.” In the church Christ is all and in all. The church, the mystery of Christ.

Then Paul writes of “the good news, ⁷of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God having been given to me according to the working of his power. ⁸To me, the least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the untraceable riches of Christ….” Paul exults in the fact that not only are the Gentiles included in the body of Christ, but he himself is blessed by grace “to preach to the Gentiles the untraceable riches of Christ….”

In v, 9 Paul refers again to the stewardship of the mystery. We said that this desire of God for the church is eternal, and here he says his stewardship is of the mystery “having been hidden from the ages in God, the one having created all things….” As we have seen, a mystery is something hidden in God until he chooses to reveal it. Paul’s stewardship is to make it known to all, Jews and Gentiles. And is that not our stewardship today?

We referred briefly to 3.10: “that the manifold wisdom of God may now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenlies through the church….” As we saw earlier the rulers and authorities in the heavenlies are spiritual beings, archangels, angels, demons, Satan. Satan is not omnipresent as God is, so he must have underlings to carry out his foul will, to tempt people, to harass them, if possible to possess them, to destroy them if God permits. He has at least this earth and its atmosphere (Eph. 2.2, “the ruler of the authority of the air”), if not the entire universe, organized under demons to do his bidding. God has his angelic beings also. Think of Peter in prison in Acts 12 and the angel who came to release him, and many other angelic appearances in the Bible.

While there is little knowledge of the truth of the church on this earth in this age and there is much wrong with the church as it exists in this age, the rulers and authorities in the heavenlies see what is going on and know the manifold wisdom of God in creating the church and making it what it is, a house for his own dwelling (Eph. 2.22) and a body of saved people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, all made one in Christ. We only await the reappearance of the Lord Jesus to make the wonder of God’s church visible to all on earth, and to see it be all that it is supposed to be, as it is now in the heavenlies. God will have his church.

V. 11 confirms our statement that the church has always been a part of his eternal plan: “according to the purpose of the ages….” The church is not an afterthought that God came up with because of sin. He has eternally wanted the church.

He accomplished this “in Christ Jesus our Lord, ¹²in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in him.” The eternal Son, slain from the foundation of the world, came to this earth and won the victory over Satan at the cross, condemning him forever and gaining for himself the throne of the universe. He is now seated on the throne in the heavenlies, and we are seated there with him spiritually. Because of his great power that vanquished Satan, we have boldness and access. Access is a wonderful thing. Have you ever tried to gain an audience with some dignitary, but could never gain access? Frustrating, isn’t it? We saw that the Jews had no access to God directly, not even the priests, and not even the High Priest except once a year. But we live in the very presence of God. We do not have to get an audience. We are with him all the time. Praises! We have this boldness and access through faith in Christ (Heb. 10.19-20). He made the way by the shedding of his blood.

Paul suffered greatly as an apostle, and many of God’s people have suffered greatly, even to martyrdom. All of us endure suffering in one way or another. But Paul, knowing that the suffering is part of God’s means of making us what he wants us to be, conformed to the image of Christ, added to this paragraph, “¹³Therefore I ask you not to lose heart in my tribulations for you, which is your glory.” Why is his tribulation our glory? Because it brings Christ into us and us into Christ, and Christ is the glory of us all. We have no glory at all in ourselves, but he is in us and he is the Son of righteousness, full of glory, more than enough for all of us. And we are seated with him in the heavenlies.

What is glory? Many think of it as light, a dazzling light radiating from God. Is. 60.1-3 says, “Arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of I AM has risen on you, ²for look, darkness will cover the earth and gross darkness the peoples, but I AM will arise on you and his glory will be seen on you, ³and nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.” The essence of glory seems to me to be fame because of achievement. We think of our soldiers gaining glory for victories on the battlefield, or athletes winning glory on the fields of play. Our great God is noted for all his achievements, the creation of everything that exists out of nothing, his omnipresence, his omniscience, his omnipotence, his great victories in routing the enemies of his people, and most of all, for his raising of the Lord Jesus from the dead.

Paul says that his tribulations are their glory. Their glory, their fame, is their faithfulness to and obedience to God brought about by the work of Paul, work filled with tribulation, but honored by God in enabling Paul to bring people to Christ.

Then we have one of Paul’s great prayers in vs. 14-19:

Because of this I bow my knees to the Father, ¹⁵from whom every family in the heavens and on the earth is named, ¹⁶that he may give to you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man, ¹⁷Christ to dwell through faith in your hearts, you having been rooted and founded in love, ¹⁸that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what are the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to all the fullness of God.

He prays “that he may give to you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man….” One of the most important elements of the Christian faith is that we are not trying to reach a God who is outside of us, but God himself lives in us by the Holy Spirit. Our power to live as Christians does not come from us, but from God within us, “in the inner man.” As noted, we are not fighting for victory, but from victory. We are not to try to be good Christians. We are to let Christ live in us, as Gal. 2.20 has it, and Christ has won total victory by the cross as manifested in the resurrection (Rom. 1.4). Paul adds in Phil. 4.13, “I can do all things through the one empowering me,” who is the Lord Jesus.

Paul continues, “… Christ to dwell through faith in your hearts….” It is by our faith that we have Christ dwelling in our hearts and giving us the strength to live for him. Everything that we have from God is by faith. Faith is essential to Christianity. “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5.7). No faith, no salvation, no Christian walk, no strengthening within. And faith is not just believing something. There are many people who believe in God, but have never received Christ as Savior by faith. The demons believe the Bible from cover to cover and they tremble (Ja. 2.19). And faith is not just believing whatever you want to believe. Rom. 10.17 says, “So faith is from hearing, and hearing through the speaking of Christ.” That is, if God doesn’t say anything there can be no faith. These preachers who tell you that if you want a million dollars, just believe for it and you will get it are not telling you the truth unless God has told you that he will. Faith is believing what God says and trusting in what he says. Christ dwells in our hearts by faith.

Love is another essential: “…you having been rooted and founded in love….” With all the hullabaloo over the gifts of the Holy Spirit in 1 Cor. 12 and 14, Paul interrupts in 12.31 and chapter 13 with, “And now I show you a more surpassing way. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become noisy brass or a clanging cymbal.”An ounce of love is better than all the spiritual gifts without love. We must be rooted and grounded in love. A plant with no root will quickly dry up. A tree with no root will fall. A building without a good foundation will not stand. Faith opens the door. Love supports all.

Then Paul gets to the asking part of his prayer: “¹⁸that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what are the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to all the fullness of God.” He wants us “to be able to comprehend with all the saints what are the breadth and length and height and depth….” Because of the next statement these words are usually interpreted as referring to the love of Christ, “the breadth and length and height and depth” of his love. I believe it actually refers to Christ himself. We said that Christ is our promised land just as the Holy Land is the promised land of the Jews. We dwell in him and will do so forever. He is our inheritance.

You can look at a map of Israel and see an almost tiny strip of land from Lebanon to a bit below Gaza on the west, southeast to the tip of the Gulf of Aqaba, and north to Syria. Jordon is on the east. This is modern day Israel. But if you read the Scriptural boundaries of Israel you will see that they are much greater. The relevant passages are Gen. 15.18, Ex. 23.31, Num. 34-12, Josh. 1.4, and Ezk. 47.15-20. I will not get into the details, but if you look at the maps picturing these areas, you will see that the biblical area promised to Israel extends from the Mediterranean Sea and the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates River in Iraq, and into modern day Turkey, and includes land in modern day Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.

Israel has never yet occupied all this land. She has never yet explored her full boundaries as promised by God. This will occur in the millennium at the return of Christ, their Messiah. In the same way Christ is our land, but we have never yet explored all the boundaries of Christ. It will take eternity for us to comprehend with all the saints what are the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ, and of course, eternity never ends. He is a vast land, a vast Savior, a vast Lord. There is no end to him. And we are not referring, of course, to his size. Yes, he fills infinity, but we are referring to his character. What kind of love would induce someone to bear every sin ever committed and the hell that results from that, and knowing the turning of his back to him of the Father with whom he had had an eternal love relationship? No, we have never scanned the heights, plumbed the depths, walked the length and breadth of this Savior who did that for us. Christ will be an eternal discovery for us forever, a wonderful, ever-expanding endeavor. Praise be to him!

Then Paul adds, “…¹⁹and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge….” Yes, his love is as vast as he is. We will never exhaust it.

Finally, “that you may be filled to all the fullness of God.” I do not know how to comment on such a statement. Me, filled with the fullness of God? All of us together filled with the fullness God? How can it be? Infinity in the likes of us? What a prayer! Glory to God!

Paul closes with what is called a doxology, an expression of praise to God. The word “doxology” come from the Greek word for “glory.” We might say that a doxology is glory to God. These are beautiful statements. Perhaps it is best just to quote it without comment.

²⁰Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all things that we ask or think according to the power that works in us, ²¹to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus into all the generations of the age of the ages. Amen.

Such is God. No wonder we are the church in the heavenlies.

4. It has been noted that Ephesians can be divided into two sections. Chapters 1-3, just covered, are what is called a doctrinal section, a stating of Christian truth. Chapters 4-6 are a practical section, spelling out how to live out the doctrinal section. So we turn now to how the church in the heavenlies conducts itself in this world, this present evil age.

Paul begins with an exhortation: “I, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you therefore to walk worthily of the calling with which you were called, ²with all humility and meekness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, ³being diligent to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” We are called by God with a great calling, to walk in this world according to the truth that we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies. There we are in complete victory, his victory shared with us. We are to walk in this world according to that victory as though that were actually true because it is true. How do we do that?

We begin by being humble and meek. The victory we have was not won by us, but by our Lord. We can take no credit for it. We have no grounds for pride. I cannot say that I am victorious in myself as though I had done something great. I was a miserable, lost sinner. The Lord Jesus pulled me out of that miry clay. All I can rightly do is to bow the knee humbly before him with worship, praise, and thanksgiving, and then rise to walk worthily of his calling.

We are to be meek. We tend to think of meekness as great weakness. We see a meek person as having no spine, letting others push him around, never standing up for himself. But biblical meekness is anything but that. The Greek word refers to the inner strength which enables a person of strength to control his anger and desire to hit back which is wrought in him by the grace of God. William Barclay calls it “strength under control” and says that “behind the gentleness there is the strength of steel.” It was Amy Carmichael who said that in acceptance lies peace. Accept what comes from God’s hand, whatever it may be, including abuse and his discipline.

A great example of meekness is Moses. In Num. 12.3 we read, “Moses was very meek, more than all men who were on the face of the earth.” He had the power and strength to rule over and lead the Israelites, yet he knew how to deal gently when it was needed.

The greatest example of meekness is the Lord Jesus himself. In Mt. 11.29, he says of himself, “… I am meek and humble in heart….” Mt. 21.5, quoting Zech. 9.9, reads, “Look! Your King is coming to you, meek and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the son of a donkey.’”

The Lord Jesus is the ultimate example of strength under control, the one whose gentleness has behind it strength far greater than steel. He was and is almighty. He could have come down from the cross, but he had the inner strength to be meek before his tormentors, giving his life for them and for us, rather than resisting God’s will for him – death in our place.

We have the strength of almighty God within us, but we are not to try to use that strength for our own purposes, but to walk in obedience to God, in meekness.

After humility and meekness we come to “longsuffering, bearing with one another in love….” Longsuffering means that we suffer something a long time rather than lashing out. I am reminded of Peter asking the Lord Jesus how many times he should forgive someone, seven times? The Lord Jesus said seventy times seven, and if you think he meant to keep count and refuse to forgive on the four hundred and ninety-first time, you have missed the whole point! We are sometimes offended by a brother or sister in the Lord. Are we to retaliate? No, we are to exercise patience and endurance, bearing with the brother or sister. How many times have we ourselves needed someone to bear with us? We should show the same forbearance with non-Christians. The Lord Jesus said, “To the one striking you on the cheek, offer also the other, and from the one taking away your cloak, also do not withhold the tunic” (Lk. 6.29). We are to be witnesses to the unsaved, not people seeking revenge, as Paul says in Rom. 12.19-21, “… not avenging yourselves, beloved, but give place to wrath, for it has been written, ‘Vengeance is mine. I will repay’  says the Lord. ²⁰But ‘if your enemy should hunger, feed him. If he should thirst, give him a drink, for doing this you will heap coals of fire on his head.’ ²¹Do not be overcome by the evil, but overcome the evil by the good.” I do not believe we are to rejoice at the coals of fire on his head, but to pray that out behavior will convict him of his sin and bring repentance.

The goal of this requirement by the Lord is to be “diligent to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Division is one of Satan’s greatest tools. If he can divide us as Christians, he can get us into arguing over any number of things, from doctrine to what color carpet to put down in the church building. If we are majoring on these issues, we are not majoring on “the calling with which we were called.” We are not loving one another, bearing with one another, preaching the good news, praying for one another and the lost and suffering. What did Paul ask the Corinthians? “Is Christ divided?” NO! Well, we are the body of Christ. Let us be so on guard to watch for Satan’s efforts to divide, and “to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Christ is our peace, as we saw in Eph. 2.14-22. Are we going to divide Christ and destroy our peace? If we have division, the response should not be to argue and fight for our side and eventually split up or have one side give in grudgingly. It should be to get on our knees together and ask God what his side is and to get us together according to his will, not yours or mine.

All of this pertains to our walking on this earth as we are in the heavenlies. Are we going to be united in the heavenlies and divided on earth? Let it not be!

As support for his argument for unity Paul writes that there are “⁴One body and one Spirit, as also you were called in one hope of your calling; ⁵one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ⁶one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” We believe that God is a Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but there is perfect unity in God. There is no disagreement there. Likewise, we are to be one body, the body of Christ. If parts of my body decide to fight with each other, what is going to happen to me? I don’t know, but it will not be good. If my right foot and my left foot both want to take the first step, how am I going to get started? Hop with both feet competing to be first? Of course not! My feet cooperate. What happens to the body of Christ when members compete against each other? For one thing, the testimony is destroyed, and that testimony to the world is one of our primary reasons for being here. Why did God not take us to Heaven as soon as we got saved? Because he wants to mature us to be ready to reign with him in his kingdom, and because we are to preach the good news to every creature. How can we tell the world of the glory of God if we are fighting among ourselves?

The proper division that we have is not really division at all. It is that we all have different gifts: “⁷But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of the gift of Christ.” God has given grace to each one of us or we would not even be saved. I suppose that we may have different measures of grace because some take advantage of grace more than others do, but the same grace is available to all.

Paul continues with the thought of grace in vs. 8-11:

Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led captivity captive; he gave gifts to men.” [Ps. 68.18] ⁹Now what is “He ascended” except that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? ¹⁰The one who descended is himself the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he may fill all things. ¹¹And he himself gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as shepherds and teachers….

This passage is a subject of disagreement. I will not go into all the details because that is not our purpose in this article. To put it briefly, most of the disagreement circles around the matter of the Lord Jesus descending into the lower parts of the earth. Some believe that it means that he descended into hell, from which he ascended to Heaven. The Apostles Creed says that the Lord Jesus descended into hell. This is based on 1 Pt. 3.19, where it says that he “he preached to the spirits in prison.” The prison is taken as hell, but the prison is not hell. It is hades (1 Pt. 2.9, Jude 6). There the lost dead are held as they await final judgment and hell. Some believe that saved people were in a different part of hades, and after the crucifixion Christ was able to go get them and take them to Heaven. Much of this disagreement is based on confusion between hades and hell. They are different (see my booklet, Hades, Hell, Paradise, and Heaven on my web site, www.tomadcox.com). And the Lord Jesus did not ascend from hell to Heaven, but from earth (Lk. 24.51, Acts 1.9).

I do not think that it is possible that the Lord Jesus went to hell. I believe that the Lord experienced hell on the cross when his Father turned his back on him, but he did not go to hell. No one is ever released from hell. Others believe the lower parts of the earth are death or the grave, others, that they are hades, the abode of the dead, the same as sheol in the Old Testament. Sheol is not hell, but hades. Hell and hades are different, as noted above.  I believe that hades is a possibility in this passage. Others believe that the lower parts are just the earth itself. Just as 2 Cor. 5.5 says that God gave “us the earnest of the Spirit,” in which the earnest is the Spirit, so in Eph. 4.9 the lower parts of the earth are the earth. The Lord Jesus descended to this earth to be born of woman as a human being. That is certainly true. I will not take sides in this disagreement because I do not think it can be solved.

The point of the passage is that “when he ascended on high he led captivity captive; he gave gifts to men.” There is another dispute over whom or what he led captive. Some think it is Satan and his evil forces, much as the Romans took prisoners from a conquest and took them back to Rome to parade through the streets as a celebration of triumph. There is a famous relief of this after the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 with Jewish captives and the menorah in view.

This is a possibility. Col. 2.15 tells us that at the cross, “Having stripped himself of the rulers and the authorities, he made a show of them openly, having triumphed over them in it.” This open show would have been in the spiritual realm, the heavenlies, not on this earth. The world is unaware that Satan has been defeated, if it even believes in Satan, but the spiritual world knows it.

However, Eph. 4.8 reads, “Therefore it says, ‘When he ascended on high he led captivity captive; he gave gifts to men.’” It does not seem likely to me that the Lord Jesus led Satan and his forces with him. And even though defeated, Satan and his forces are still at large and able to carry on their foul work among men. The word I have translated as “captivity” can mean just that, captivity, or it can mean a host of captives. The English version I usually use has “host of captives.” But who would the captives be? Captives in the sense of prisoners would not be taken to Heaven, but to hades. It is my belief that the Lord Jesus took captivity itself with him. That is, people who have been slaves of sin (Rom. 6.16-17, 2 Tim. 2.26) have been set free (Jn. 8.32, 36, 2 Cor. 3.17, Gal. 5.1). Captivity itself has been taken captive by the Lord Jesus so that he is able to free people from sin and its consequences.

All of these last five paragraphs are an aside and not the point of this paper, but I felt it necessary to go into this matter because of the difficult passage. Let us now return to our theme. V. 10 says that the Lord “ascended far above all the heavens, that he may fill all things.” This goes back to Eph. 1.10 where we wrote, “Now through Paul God reveals a whole new concept, the summing up of all things in Christ. Col. 3.11 says that Christ will be all and in all. In the kingdom of God there will be no division, but perfect unity, with Christ dwelling in and being the life of everyone.” And to Eph. 1.22-23: “… he subjected all things under his feet and gave him to be Head over all things to the church, ²³which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all in all.” Christ will be all in all. Remarkably, the church, the likes of us, will be the fullness of Christ. Is this not the church in the heavenlies? The whole of that passage says

that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, ¹⁹and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who have had faith according to the working of the might of his strength, ²⁰which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenlies, ²¹far above all rule and authority and power and lordship and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come, ²²and he subjected all things under his feet and gave him to be Head over all things to the church, ²³which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all in all.

This is all present tense: what ARE the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what IS the surpassing greatness of his power for us. Christ IS seated … at his right hand in the heavenlies. He IS far above all rule and authority and power and lordship and every name that is named. The church, which IS his body, the fullness of the one who fills all in all. We ARE NOW the church in the heavenlies, seated with Christ.

V. 7 had said, “But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of the gift of Christ.” Then v. 8 says that Christ gave gifts to men. What are these gifts? ¹¹And he himself gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as shepherds and teachers….” These are ministry gifts which God gave to the church, to take Christ everywhere they went, to preach the good news, to win the lost, to shepherd the saved and to teach them. But the gifts do not end with this list of those who have some leadership in the church. V. 12 tells us that these ministry gifts are given to the church “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for building up of the body of Christ….” That is, the work of ministry is not limited to the leaders, but is the responsibility of all who are of the church. The job of those leaders is to train all the church to be able to minister, which means to serve (the Greek word means both “minister” and “serve,” and the word “minister” just means “serve”). A minister is not someone high and mighty over others, but a servant. The job of these leaders is to train the others to build up the body of Christ, and that does not mean just to win the lost, but to build up the saved, to help them to grow and deepen in the Lord. All of us in the church except the very newcomers should be able to carry out these functions, and they should be initiated into such service as soon as possible.

What is the purpose of all of this? V. 13: “…until we all come to the unity of the faith and the full knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of stature of the fullness of Christ….” We began this chapter with unity. There is no division in Christ. There is to be no division in the church. We do not see such a unified church in this world, but one full of division, but the church in the heavenlies is without division, and we are to work to make this a reality on the earth insofar as we can, given the weakness of mankind.

There are two Greek words for knowledge. One means knowledge in general. The other means full knowledge. Most people, at least in the western world, have some knowledge of the Lord Jesus whether they are his or not. God wants us to gain the full knowledge of the Son of God, to grow in him into maturity, “to a mature man.” Growth takes time. It takes some measure of suffering as we saw in Heb. 2.10 and 5.8 earlier. It takes effort, the study of the word of God and the fellowship of the members of the body. We will not reach the full knowledge of Christ in this world, but we are to work toward it as long as we are here. And we will continue to learn Christ forever. He is inexhaustible.

What about “the measure of stature of the fullness of Christ…”? There can be many measures of stature. How tall are we? The yardstick is a physical measure of us. How educated are we? The grade completed and grades earned or the degrees earned are measures of us. What is our position in the work world? The level of our jobs is a measure of us. For the military, rank is a measure. The ultimate measure of stature for Christians is Christ himself and the measure of his fullness at that. Of course, none of us measure up very well against him, but he is the goal. That is another of those things that will go on forever. And we are to be working now to grow up in that.

 We are not to compare ourselves with other Christians in a wrong way. Yes, we may be challenged and encouraged by someone of maturity in the Lord, but that person is not the measure. Christ is the measure. God is working to conform us to the image of Christ (Rom. 8.29). We may look at another Christian whom we judge as not as good a Christian as we are and think we are doing rather well. That person is not the measure. Christ is. We are not the measure. Christ is. How well are we doing compared to Christ? And remember, God sees the heart. That one we think not so good a Christian may have a better heart than we have, and the very fact that we think ourselves better shows pride in us, which is spiritually deadly. God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble (Prov. 3.34, Ja. 4.6, 1 Pt. 5.5).

Paul moves on to one of the reasons we are to “come to the unity of the faith and the full knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of stature of the fullness of Christ….” It is

¹⁴that we may no longer be children, tossed by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching, by the sleight [Greek: playing with dice, implying cheating] of men, by craftiness for the purposes of the scheming of deceit, ¹⁵but maintaining the truth in love let us grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ….

Keep in mind that we are the Lord’s by a new birth, a spiritual birth. A newborn is a baby.  When we are first saved we are baby Christians. Like any other baby we have to grow up, or at least ought to. Peter writes in 1 Pt. 2.2 of “milk, that by it you may be grown in [or into] salvation.” Heb. 5.12-14 says,

For indeed you being obligated to be teachers because of the time, you have need for someone to teach you again the elementary principles of the beginning of the sayings of God and you have come to have need of milk and not strong food. ¹³For everyone partaking of milk is inexperienced in the word of righteousness, for he is a baby. ¹⁴But strong food is for the mature, those having the senses trained because of practice for discernment of good and evil.

It is perfectly alright for a baby to eat baby food, but as he grows he ought to be eating stronger food, meat and vegetables and fruits. The Christian who should have matured at least somewhat, but is still eating baby food, probably has something wrong. It is certainly true that someone who has been a Christian for some time and has shown no growth needs help. He may be “tossed by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching.” Because he does not have a strong foundation in Biblical truth and a walk with the Lord, he may be able to be led into false doctrine. He may be subject to “the sleight of men, by craftiness for the purposes of the scheming of deceit.” Eph. 6.11 speaks of “the schemes of the devil.” Remember that Satan is the cleverest liar there is and the father of lies (Jn. 8.44). He knows how to lie to us even when we do not know that he is doing it, and how to trick us into going the wrong way. The Greek word “sleight” in v. 14 is based on a root that has to do with playing with dice, implying cheating, as noted above. Satan will cheat. He has no obligation to be fair and honest.

Because of this we should not continue to be children, easily tossed about as on waves. That brings us back to the gifts of apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers. These more mature Christians are given to the church for this very reason, to lay a good foundation, and the foundation is Christ himself (1 Cor. 3.11). We read in Eph. 2.20 of “the foundation of the apostles and prophets.” They are to give a clear witness and explanation to the lost in their efforts to bring them to salvation. Shepherds and teachers are to teach not just true doctrine, but the Lord himself, as we have it in Eph. 4.20. They are to work to bring Christians into a personal knowledge of the Lord Jesus and relationship with him and not just head knowledge about him. This is designed by God that we may maintain “the truth in love [and] let us grow up in all things into him who is the Head, Christ….” That is the goal. Christ is the Head. We are the members. We are to be members worthy of our Head. We are that in the heavenlies. We are to make that a reality in this world.

We are to “grow up in all things into him who is the Head, Christ, ¹⁶from whom all the body, being fitted together and held together through every connection of supply according to the working in measure of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.” All of this begins with Christ. From him the body is fitted together, each member in the place where Christ wants him to be. We are not to decide where we will be or what we will do, but to seek the will of God in these things, as in all. I cannot decide to be an apostle or a prophet or an evangelist or a pastor or a teacher or whatever function there is in the body. That is the Lord’s choice.

As we find our places in the body and carry them out, we are “fitted together and held together through every connection of supply according to the working in measure of each individual part.” Each individual has a part to play, a job to do, and as we do the Lord’s will, we cause “the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.” We have seen that Paul writes long sentences in Ephesians. All of vs. 11-16 appears to be one sentence in Greek. I remember some years ago reading this passage and wondering, what is the subject of this sentence? As I read it several times it seemed to me that the subject is “the body” in v. 16. When we all take our places and carry them out, the body builds itself up, of itself, in love. Of course, the Lord Jesus is the ultimate builder of the body, but he does it through his people. We do not just stand there and suddenly become built up in love. How much we need to see and understand that the church is the body of Christ, a living body. In the mind and purpose of God this is all true now, and it is true in the heavenlies. We do not see this on earth now, and how divided and sometimes unloving the body is, a very disjointed body, but the Lord is working through us to keep moving toward the goal, and when he returns, we will see it in all its glory.

Remember that God is in eternity. There are no past and future to him. Everything is present. He sees the church now according to his eternal concept of it, the church in the heavenlies.

Heb. 12.18-24 is a wonderful passage dealing with this church in the heavenlies:

For you have not come to that which can be touched and which burned with fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, and to the sound of a trumpet and a voice of words, of which those who heard asked that no further word be added to them, for they could not bear what was commanded, “And if even an animal touches the mountain, it will be stoned.” And so fearful was what appeared, Moses said, “I am terrified and trembling.” But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels in festal assembly, and to the church of the firstborn enrolled in the heavens, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to the Mediator of a new covenant, Jesus, and to sprinkled blood that speaks better than that of Abel. [emphasis added]

Bless the Lord!

Paul continues with this making of the eternal truth of the church real in this world today. He writes in vs. 17-19:

This therefore I say and testify in the Lord, that you walk no longer as the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind, ¹⁸being darkened in understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them because of the hardness of their heart, ¹⁹who having become insensitive have given themselves to sensuality for the working of all immorality in greediness.

He says, “Don’t do that!” Don’t walk as the Gentiles walk. Remember that there are three kinds of people in the world, Jews, Gentiles, and the church of God. Gentiles are unsaved people in this context. Don’t walk as they do, with a mind of futility and darkness, alienated from the life of God. This futility and darkness are their own fault because they have hardened their hearts against God. That hardening has made them insensitive to God, to right and wrong, and they have given themselves to sensuality, living to fulfill their appetites, for immorality and greed. We read in 1 Tim. 4.2 of those who have seared their consciences so that they no longer discern between good and evil or feel any conviction when they do evil. That is what hardening of the heart will do, sear the conscience. That is a very dangerous place to be.

Then Paul says, “²⁰But you did not so learn Christ (²¹if indeed you heard him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus).” Paul and the other apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers did not teach that! Christ is anything but that and so are his people to be. You learned Christ so “²²that you put off, according to the former way of life, the old man, which is being corrupted according to the lusts of deceit….” The old man is our flesh, our sin nature, the basis of sins. The old man has been crucified with Christ (Rom. 6.6, Gal. 2.20), so we are to put him off (see also Col. 3.9). He is dead. We are to claim that death of the old man and our being seated with Christ in the heavenlies and walk in that spiritual truth, walk on this earth as we are in the heavenlies.

That is the negative side. On the positive side we are “²³to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, ²⁴and to put on the new man, which is being created according to God in righteousness and respect of the truth.” Our minds are governed by a spirit. It can be the Holy Spirit or Satan and his forces, the evil spirits. The Gentiles and many Jews have minds governed by the lies of Satan. We can choose to let the Holy Spirit guide our minds. We do that by putting on the new man. The new man is ultimately Christ in us as we are united with him, 1 Cor. 6.17: “The one being joined to the Lord is one spirit,” that is, one spirit with the Lord. He is our life (Col. 3.4). We are one with him. As we put on the new man we are “being created according to God in righteousness and respect of the truth.” We are made righteous with the righteousness of Christ (Jer. 33.16, 1 Cor. 1.30, 2 Cor. 5.21, Phil. 3.9). He is our righteousness. We are realizing in this world the truth that we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies.

Vs. 25-32 are largely a list of dos and don’ts in carrying out this assignment of living on this earth in accordance with our spiritual position in the heavenlies, so I will just quote it here:

Therefore having put off lying, “each of you speak truth with his neighbor” [Zech. 8.16], for we are members of one another. ²⁶Be angry and don’t sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your irritation, ²⁷and don’t give a place to the devil. ²⁸Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, working with his hands the good, that he may have to give to the one having need. ²⁹Let no bad word go out of your mouth, but if anything is good for edification of the need, that it may give grace to those who hear. ³⁰And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. ³¹Let all bitterness and rage and anger and angry shouting and slander be taken away from you, with all malice. ³²Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also forgave you. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”

Is. 63.10 says of the Jews, “But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. Therefore he was turned to be their enemy. He fought against them.” In our endeavors to live on earth as we are in the heavenlies, do we want the Holy Spirit to be grieved with our behavior so that God himself turns against us and fights against us? We will not lose our salvation, but we can lose our peace with God and his blessing on our lives. We can lose our rewards in the kingdom (1 Cor. 3.15, Rev. 3.11, and see chapter 7 of my booklet Mega Grace, available on my web site, www.tomadcox.com). I think all serious Christians want to have something to give to the Lord when we meet him face to face. We are told of the crown of righteousness, the crown of life, and the crown of glory. I don’t know that the Bible says it in so many words, but I know that many Christians take those crowns as rewards and they want to cast those crowns at the feet of the Lord Jesus (Rev. 4.10). Do we want to be empty handed when we see him? Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit, but follow these instructions of our dear brother Paul.

5. Eph. 5.1-5 continues the dos and don’ts:

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, ²and walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God of a smell of fragrance. ³But let immorality and all impurity or greed not be named among you, as is fitting in saints, ⁴and shameful behavior and foolish talk or vulgar jesting, things not proper, but rather thanksgiving. ⁵For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or greedy person, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

I will comment on v. 5, on the matter of an inheritance in the kingdom. Some Christians, probably most, believe that all Christians will have an inheritance in the kingdom, that is, the millennium and on into eternity. I know of some who believe that it is possible for a person to be saved and go to Heaven, but lose his inheritance. We read in 2 Thess. 1.5 of being worthy of the kingdom.

Eph. 5.5 says, “For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or greedy person, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” Let us say that one of these people is saved, but then lapses back into his sin. We believe that one cannot lose his salvation, but this verse indicates that he will have no inheritance in the kingdom. It is quite clear in Scripture that we can lose our rewards, but still be saved. I have already referred to 1 Cor. 3.15 and Rev. 3.11. Are the reward and the inheritance the same?

I do not know. I raise this point to say that it is not completely clear in Scripture about rewards and inheritance. But this I do know – there is enough indication in Scripture about losing rewards and inheritance, and some verses could be taken to indicate that one can lose his salvation (Gal. 5.4, Heb. 6.4-8 and others). I am not saying that I believe a person can lose salvation. I do not. But I am saying that there is enough doubt that it is unwise to take the chance. Be faithful and obedient to God so as not to find out later that one can indeed lose salvation.

And more to the point of this paper, I am saying that if will live on this earth as we are in the heavenlies, seated with Christ, this matter will not even come up. Walk with the Lord as one spirit with him. Live on earth as we are in the heavenlies, fulfilling God’s eternal concept of the church. If we do that we need not be concerned with these questions.

In Eph. 5.6-8 Paul deals with the matters of deceit and light and darkness: “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the anger of God comes on the sons of disobedience. ⁷Therefore don’t be fellow partakers with them, ⁸for you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light….” We have seen that Satan is a liar. He is the master of deceit. He will never come to us and say, “I am Satan. I want you to go to hell. Do as I say and you will go to hell.” No, he appears as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11.14). He makes things look so good, so satisfying, so rewarding. There is a country song that has the line, “Somebody’s knockin’. Should I let him in? Lord, it’s the devil. Would you look at him? I’ve heard about him, but I never dreamed he’d have blue eyes and blue jeans.” No, you should not let him in! He is trying to deceive you, just as he deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden by making it look so good to eat of the fruit. Look at the result of that. “Flee youthful lusts” (2 Tim. 2.22). Flee anything Satan proposes. He is lying! “Because of these things the anger of God comes on the sons of disobedience.” Do we want God to be angry with us? I think not.

And as our verse here in Ephesians says, Satan uses evil or deceived people to try to lure you into their sins. Everybody’s doing it. Not everybody. I’m not! Yes, I was “once darkness, but now [I am] light in the Lord. Walk as children of light….” Live on the earth as we are in the heavenlies, seated with Christ, in the light, the Light of the world. Satan and men love darkness because their deeds are evil (Jn. 3.19). Let us walk in the light. How do we walk in the light? One way is to read and study God’s word and abide by what it says. It is light on paper.

Paul reinforces his command to walk in the light: “⁹(for the fruit of light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth), ¹⁰proving what is pleasing to the Lord.” We are to bear fruit for God. That fruit is not evil, unrighteousness, and lies, but just the opposite. Do we want to be pleasing to God? Certainly we do. If we walk in the light, we have nothing to be ashamed of. It is telling to note that in our world today we are more and more seeing the fulfillment of Is. 5.20: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” We are to stand for good, light, and the sweet before this evil world.

¹¹And don’t fellowship with them in the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather rebuke them.

The Greek word for “fellowship” is based on the idea of having something in common with someone or someones. What we as Christians have in common with each other is the Lord Jesus living in us. We have the same life. We do not have anything in common with those who do evil if we are walking with the Lord. Paul writes in 2 Cor. 6.14-7.1,

Don’t become unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? ¹⁵Or what harmony has Christ with Beliar? Or what part is there in faithful with unfaithful? ¹⁶Or what agreement is there in the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God and they will be my people” [Ex. 29.45, Lev. 26.12]. ¹⁷Therefore come out from among them and be separated,” says the Lord, “and touch nothing unclean’ [Is. 52.11], and I will welcome you, and I will be a Father to you and you will be sons and daughters to me,” says the Lord almighty. ^7.1Therefore, having these promises, beloved, we should cleanse ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

We cannot be righteous and lawless at the same time. We cannot go back and forth from righteousness to lawlessness. If we do, we are just lawless. God will not accept such behavior. There cannot be both light and darkness at the same time. If one turns on the lights the darkness disappears, and vice versa.  Beliar is an Old Testament name for Satan and “sons of Beliar” are sons of the devil. Can we be both faithful and unfaithful? Do we bring idols into the temple of God, the very Holy of Holies? Anything besides God is an idol. God will not accept our worship if we have idols. We are not likely to have physical idols such as wood and stone and the like, but we can worship ourselves, someone else, money, pleasure, and so on. We cannot help having various relationships with the world (1 Cor. 5.10), but we are not to fellowship with them. We are to rebuke them.

¹²For what is done by them in secret is shameful even to say, ¹³but all things, being rebuked, are made known by the light, ¹⁴for everything that is made known is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

When we rebuke what is shameful, that shines the light of truth on it and the shamefulness is seen for what it is. It is there for all to see. It is a terrible thing to see that in our day these shameful things are not done just in the dark, but openly. People are proud of them. It is Is. 5.20 again: evil is good. But v. 14 tells us to wake up if we are spiritually asleep, rise up from a spiritual death, and Christ will shine on us. He is light and will show what is really good and what is really evil. We are not spiritually asleep, dead, in darkness in the heavenlies with Christ. Then don’t be that way on earth. Walk in the light and stay away from shameful behavior.  We are to BE what we are.

¹⁵See carefully therefore to how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, ¹⁶redeeming the time, for the days are evil. ¹⁷Because of this don’t be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. “Therefore” is an important word in Scripture. It means that since this is true, that is also true, or since this is true, behave in this way. Since everything written in Ephesians up to this point is true, we are to be careful how we walk. Not as unwise, but as wise. One example of this wisdom is given by Paul here: redeem the time, for the days are evil. The word “redeem” means to buy back. In the Bible it means primarily to buy slaves to sin from the slave market. We were all sinners, slaves to sin. Our salvation is a redemption, the Lord Jesus buying us out of slavery and setting us free from sin. We all have twenty-four hours a day. In this evil day, much time is devoted to evil behavior. There are the terrible things such as getting rich off of the misery of others by human trafficking, drug addiction, and so forth. But even much time that is not actually used for an evil purpose is not redeemed. It is wasted on fruitless behavior. In such an evil time, and the world has been this way since the first sin, time has been enslaved to evil or worthless purposes. Paul says that we are not to let our time to be so used, but to redeem it from this slavery and use it for good and positive purposes. For us that means doing the will of God, whatever it may be. God provides for times of rest and that time is not wasted. When we are not resting, we should be doing something useful. Redeem the time!

^“18And don’t be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit….” Being drunk with wine is a form of letting time be enslaved. What good is accomplished in that time? None, but much evil. Do you suppose that there is any drunkenness in the heavenlies where Christ is, where we are seated with him? If that behavior is not acceptable there, it isnot acceptable here. It may not be the best way to put it, but in this context we might say that if you want to get drunk on something, get drunk on the Lord Jesus. Don’t be filled with alcoholic spirits, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. That is what we are in the heavenlies. Let us be that way here.

What will result from being filled with the Spirit? One thing is that we will be              “⁹speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and giving praise in your heart to the Lord, ²⁰giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God and Father….” Are we living that way? Are we speaking to one another and to God in such a way, or are we complaining and begging God to get us out of some trouble and give us some blessing? In the heavenlies there is continuous praise to God. Ought we not to be living in such as way in this world that is in such need of it? Paul adds, “giving thanks always for all things” (see also 1 Thess 5.18). All things? Yes, all things. God has purpose for everything that he either causes or allows into our lives, and nothing comes into our lives by accident. I am no example, but I find that when some trouble comes into my life, and some are very difficult as you all know, it is best that I say thanks to God for it and ask him to realize his full purpose in it. That does not always make me feel better, but we do not live by sight or feelings, but by faith (2 Cor. 5.7). When trouble comes, thank God for it by faith. It will turn out for good (Rom. 8.28), and perhaps not in this life, but in the kingdom we will see it if we are faithful to God. That is life in the heavenlies lived out on this earth.

Next we come to one of the great pictures in the Bible. It begins with something we may not like: “²¹submitting to one another in the fear of Christ….” We all, because of the fall, have a rebellious spirit that does not want to submit to anyone. No one is going to tell me what to do! And the next statement is extremely disliked by some: “²²…wives to their own husbands as to the Lord, ²³for the husband is head of the wife as also Christ is head of the church, himself Savior of the body. ²⁴But as the church is submitted to Christ, so also wives to husbands in everything….” In this day of feminism and “my rights” and all of that, there is huge hatred of such a statement. I am not going to get into all of that. That is not my purpose in this paper. But I will say this. Take note that the passage begins with “submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.” We all as Christians are to submit to one another. That is, I am not to demand my way and you are not to demand yours. We are all to submit to each other by getting on our knees together and seeking the will of God. We submit to him as a body and let him lead us in his ways. If we all have this submissive spirit instead of the rebellious spirit we are born with, we will find great peace and harmony.

And notice this: the passage is not so much about husbands and wives as it is that great picture just referred to. Human marriage is intended by God to be a picture of Christ and the church. Does anyone dispute that Christ is Head of the church? Perhaps some feminists do! Husbands and wives have roles to play in the will of God. Christians submissive to God will accept that and not argue about that. I am not going to deal with all that the unbelievers or rebellious Christians say in this context. Christians submissive to God accept his will. We are submissive in the heavenlies, are we not?

You men who think you are the boss, ask yourselves what Christ did for the church: he died for it. Are you willing to lay down your life for your wife, whether by actual death or by living for her under the will of God and not for yourself?

Paul continues:

²⁵Husbands, love your wives, as also Christ loved the church and gave himself for her, ²⁶that he may make her holy, having made her clean by the washing of the water with the spoken word, ²⁷that he himself may present to himself the glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any of such things, but that she may be holy and blameless.

Christ gave himself for the church “that he might make her holy.” Heb. 12.14 says, “Pursue … holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.” I don’t know fully what this means. Is it possible to be saved but not holy? Heb. 12.10 says that God disciplines us “for us to receive of his holiness.” I think the answer lies in the fact that there are two sides to holiness. The word “holiness” can mean “set apart for God,” but the Bible also teaches that we are to be perfect as God is perfect (Mt. 5.48). Are we perfect as soon as we are saved and set apart for God? Are we ever perfect as God is perfect? It seems that there is growth in holiness. The Lord Jesus makes us more and more holy over time as we live in faith and obedience toward him.

Paul continues with “that he might make her holy, having made her clean by the washing of the water with the spoken word.” The word of God is cleansing. As we read and study it and abide by it, it reveals areas of our lives that need cleansing, and as we accept that, we are cleansed. John wrote, “If we confess our sins he is faithful and just that he may forgive us the sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1.9). The Greek word for “word” in Eph. 5.26 refers to a spoken word. As we study the written word the Lord will bring passages alive in our hearts. He speaks to us. As we yield to what he says we are cleansed.

Why does he cleanse us? “That he himself may present to himself the glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any of such things, but that she may be holy and blameless.” He wants a bride and he is in the process of preparing the bride now, by cleansing her and making her holy.

I do not personally believe that all Christians will be a part of the bride of Christ in his kingdom. I referred to this in dealing with Eph. 5.18. It is those who are submissive to him, being faithful and obedient, allowing him to cleanse us and make us holy, who will make up the bride. Those who resist his dealings with them and are not faithful and obedient will be saved, but will miss out on what is the greatest blessing we can ever have, I believe, the deepest intimacy with our precious Lord Jesus. Those who accept that they are seated with Christ in the heavenlies and endeavor to live that out in this wicked world will make up the bride. Yield to him. Let him do his work of perfecting us, whatever the cost may be. It will be more than worth it.

²⁸So also husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. The one who loves his wife loves himself, ²⁹for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as also Christ the church, ³⁰for we are members of his body. ³¹“Because of this a man will leave father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two will be one flesh.” [Gen. 2.24] ³²This mystery is great, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. ³³Nevertheless you also let each individual one love his wife so, as himself, and the wife, that she fear the husband.

To give an earthly example of this heavenly life, “husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. The one who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as also Christ the church….” A man is to love his wife as his own body, for the two of them are one body, one flesh, as Paul points out in v. 31: “Because of this a man will leave father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two will be one flesh.” In the same way, “we are members of his body,” the church, the body of Christ. We are one person with Christ, as we saw in 1 Cor. 6.17: ”The one being joined to the Lord is one spirit.”

What a terrible witness to the world is a marriage divided, husband and wife living apart and having nothing to do with each other or being divorced, just as a divided church is a terrible witness. If we are one body with Christ, are we not one with each other as the church? Christ is not divided. Neither should the church be. It is a sad fact that the church in the world is divided, terribly divided. What kind of witness is that to a lost and dying world that desperately needs the Lord Jesus? We cannot change the situation in the world, but we can do all within our power to be one body with those with whom we are in fellowship. We can do all possible to BE what we are in the heavenlies.

Paul states plainly why this is so important: “This mystery is great, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” He is not speaking about human marriage, but about Christ and the church. A Christian marriage is to be a testimony to what Christ and the church are.  How are we measuring up? “Nevertheless you also let each individual one love his wife so, as himself, and the wife, that she fear the husband.” And fear here does not mean living afraid of the husband, but proper respect for the one whom God has designated as head of the home. I believe that if a man does his part, loving his wife in such a way as to lay down his life for his wife, she will have no need to be afraid and will respect what he is before the Lord.

While he is dealing with the real purpose of Christian marriage, Paul brings children into the picture:

6. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ²“Honor your father and mother” [Ex. 20.12, Dt. 5.16], which is the first commandment with a promise, “³that it may be well with you and that you may be long-lived on the earth.” [Ex. 20.12, Dt. 5.16] ⁴And fathers, don’t anger your children, but bring them up in the discipline and admonition of the Lord.

Just as Christian marriage should be a picture of Christ and the church, so should the obedience of children to their parents be a picture of the church’s obedience to Christ. When we are born again we are spiritual babies. The Lord works in our lives directly and through his servants to grow us up in him. A part of that training is learning obedience. A part of that obedience is honoring parents, submitting to them and obeying them. So it is with the church and Christ.

Paul points out that there is a promise attached to this requirement: “that it may be well with you and that you may be long-lived on the earth.” Remember that our promises from God as Christians are spiritual, not material. God does not promise us a long life in years on this earth and that everything will go well, but we do have eternal life and we will know spiritual blessing, whatever our earthly circumstances may be.

Paul also has a word to fathers: “And fathers, don’t anger your children, but bring them up in the discipline and admonition of the Lord.” It is a father’s duty to love his children and treat them well, even when he has to discipline them, and to do all in his power to lead them to the Lord.

Some of us did not have good earthly fathers, and some, no father at all. Some have been raised in such a way that they are filled with anger. Col. 3.21 says in dealing with this same issue, “The fathers, do not provoke your children, that they not become passionless.” Children can be so beaten down that they will either be full of anger or they will be passionless, having given up on life. What’s the use? None of this is a picture of Christ and the church.

Keep in mind that all of this has to do with our being seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Does Christ so treat us? Sometimes we may think so as he disciplines us or puts is through hard trials, but his motivation is always love for us and for our ultimate good and for the purpose of God to be realized. An old friend from many years ago said that the happiest place on earth was a Christian home. If we live out what we are in the heavenlies we will see more of this and it will be a testimony to the world.

Next Paul turns to the matter of slaves:

⁵Slaves, obey your masters according to flesh with fear and trembling, with sincerity of your heart, as to Christ, ⁶not according to eyeservice as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ doing the will of God from the soul, ⁷serving with good will, as to the Lord and not to men, ⁸knowing that each one, if he have done any good thing, will receive this from the Lord, whether slave or free. ⁹And, masters, do the same things toward them, ceasing from threatening, knowing that both their Lord and yours is in the heavens, and there is no partiality with him.

The matter of slavery is a difficult one for us to deal with given the history of slavery in our own country and its ongoing results to this day. I in no way approve of slavery. It is a wicked thing. Why does Paul not condemn it outright? I cannot answer that question fully and I have no insight into the mind of Paul other than what is revealed in Scripture. But the truth is that slavery was a way of life in the ancient world, even as it is today in some places. As many as 20-30% of people were slaves, and in Rome at times 1/3 of the population were slaves. When an army such as Rome’s conquered a people it would take many slaves and put them to work in many ways. There were some who were teachers of the children of the wealthy (Gal. 4.1-2). They were used for all sorts of labor. There were slaves who had rather good lives and others in misery. I don’t condone it, but it was just the way it was in ancient days, and still is in places.

Apparently one of Paul’s views was that we should see our situation as from God. If we believe that everything in our lives is either caused or allowed by God for his purposes, then we should take this view. “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1Thess. 5.18). If we are not where God wants us, he is able to move us. I quoted Amy Carmichael earlier that in acceptance lies peace. Please do not take this as indicating that I approve of slavery in any way. I abhor it. But I am dealing with reality as it was and with spiritual matters as set forth in the word of God. I do not believe that God approves of slavery and it is his people who led the charge in doing away with it. The world is full of evil, including slavery. Why does God not just do away with all of it? He is in the process. There will be a day when we are freed from the very presence of sin. And Paul does say in 1 Cor. 7.21, “Were you called as a slave? Do not let it be a care to you, but if you are also able to become free, take advantage of that.”

Paul writes that slaves should accept their lot as from God and serve as though serving him, with sincerity of heart, not just to be seen as pleasing men, but as slaves of God. Remember that Paul says in Eph. 3.1 and 4.1 that he is the prisoner of the Lord, not of Rome. He accepted his lot as from God and tried to make the most of it, for the Lord. He was not wrapped up in himself, as many of us usually are, but with the Lord. What does God want me to do in the situation? Not, “Lord, get me out of this.” He knew that God had him there for a purpose. This is a fundamental principle of our faith. It is the will of God that we do our best as unto him no matter where we are. And in v. 8 he adds, “… knowing that each one, if he have done any good thing, will receive this from the Lord, whether slave or free.” If we are faithful to the Lord in whatever circumstances, we will be rewarded.

Then Paul has a word for the masters in v. 9: “And, masters, do the same things toward them, ceasing from threatening, knowing that both their Lord and yours is in the heavens, and there is no partiality with him.” The master on earth has a Lord in Heaven who will judge or reward him.

Paul’s mission was not the abolition of slavery. That was left for others at a future date. Paul’s mission was to “to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the authority of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those having been sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26.18). And he was able to add v. 19: “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.” Paul knew that he was seated with Christ in the heavenlies and he endeavored to live that out in his earthly mission. So may we.

We come now to one of the major passages in Ephesians on the matter of the heavenlies. Paul has instructed us on the fact that we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies and on how to make that a reality in our lives on this earth. Now he deals with the opposition to our living this out, “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies.” We said that the heavenlies are not Heaven itself, but the spiritual realm, including Heaven, and that there are evil forces in the heavenlies. Here they are.

Paul begins this section with the following: “¹⁰Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the might of his strength. ¹¹Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil, ¹²for our wrestling is not against blood and flesh….” It is very easy for us to see other flesh and blood humans who oppose or even persecute us as our enemies, but, they are not. Satan and his forces are the enemy. He is also the enemy of those humans who oppose us, and he has them in his deceit and slavery. Instead of seeing them as enemies, we should see them as the lost sinners we once were and pray for them and share the Lord with them if possible. But we are to oppose the spiritual forces of evil.

No, we are not wrestling against flesh and blood,

… but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies. ¹³Because of this, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. ¹⁴Stand, therefore, having girded your loins with truth [Is. 11.5], and having put on the breastplate of righteousness [Is. 59.17], ¹⁵and having shod the feet with the readiness of the good news of peace [Is. 52.7], in all having taken the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one, ¹⁷and take the helmet of salvation [Is. 59.17] and the sword of the Spirit [Is. 49.2], which is the speaking of God, ¹⁸through all prayer and petition praying in every time in the Spirit, and for this purpose watching with all perseverance and petition for all the saints….

It is of note that Paul does not tell us to attack the enemy and fight with them, but to stand: “that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.Stand, therefore.” How can he say this? Because Christ defeated Satan utterly at the cross and was raised from the dead to reveal that. We do not have to fight for victory. We already have the victory in Christ. We do not fight for victory, but from victory. We are seated with Christ in the heavenlies, in victory.

We do not need to expound all the parts of the armor of God. They are just aspects of Christ. He is truth, he is righteousness, he is the good news of peace, he is faith, he is salvation, and he is the speaking of God, the word made flesh (Jn. 1.1).

Someone has said that our battles are won is prayer, not in trying to assault the devil or the problem at hand: “… through all prayer and petition praying in every time in the Spirit, and for this purpose watching with all perseverance and petition for all the saints….” Some have said that they feel that their prayers do not get above the ceiling. They do not have to get above the ceiling. Christ is in us by the Holy Spirit, and we are seated with him in the heavenlies. We are not fighting against humans on earth, but standing in victory over Satan in prayer. We hear about spiritual warfare, and it is certainly a reality. That warfare is waged in prayer by faith, standing, standing in the victory. We may be praying on our knees, but we are standing in the victory of Christ.

We also hear about Satan being a defeated foe and about people talking to him, rebuking him and so forth. He is a defeated foe, but do not think that that means that he cannot get at us. We have seen what a clever liar he is. If we try to match wits with him he will win. He is smarter than we are. He knows all about our weak points. He knows how to put thoughts into our minds that we think are our own thoughts. We read in Eph. 4.4 about his sleight, his craftiness, his scheming. That scheming is referred to again here in Eph. 6.11. On the matter of rebuking the devil, Jude 9 says, “But Michael the archangel, when disputing with the devil argued about the body of Moses, did not dare to pronounce a reviling judgment, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you.’” Someone as high as an archangel would not dare to rebuke the devil, but left that with God: “The Lord rebuke you.” Do not get into rebuking the devil and arguing with him. Just let the Lord rebuke him. Pray on your knees, standing in the victory of the Lord Jesus. We are seated with him in the heavenlies, in the spiritual world.

In dealing with prayer, Paul asks for prayer for himself, not selfishly, but for his mission: “¹⁹and for me, that a word may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the good news, ²⁰for which I am an ambassador in chains, that in it I may speak freely, as I ought to speak.” Paul wants, not something for himself, but for the power of the Holy Spirit to speak through him, to give him boldness in speaking out for the Lord. Have you ever wanted to say something for the Lord, but you were afraid of what people might think about you if you did? I have. God give us boldness. And even though he was in chains physically, he was not in chains in in the heavenlies, but seated with Christ with all freedom and boldness to speak out the truth. Should we not pray the same way for what God wants us to do? We are seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Act like it!

Then Paul adds a personal note:

²¹But that you also may know the things concerning me, how I am, Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will make all things known to you, ²²whom I sent to you for this very reason, that you may know the things concerning us and that he may encourage your hearts.

His concern was still not for himself, but that the hearts of his readers might be encouraged. And this message of encouragement is certainly what the letter to the Ephesians is. It encourages us because it teaches us that the church is not just a group of people on earth struggling to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil in our own strength, but we are a host of people seated with our victorious Lord in the heavenlies who has already overcome (Jn. 16.33). Just as God gave the ancient Israelites victory in the land of Canaan as set forth in the book of Joshua, so he has given us victory in this world. We are seated in victory in the spiritual world. We are to stand in that victory in this world.

Eleven times the book of Revelation speaks of “those who dwell on the earth” at the end of this age. They are those who follow after the antichrist and worship him. These are lost people who have been deceived by Satan and are facing the judgments of the seals, trumpets, thunders, and bowls, and eternal hell. Let us pray for these that some may be saved, and let us not be those who dwell on the earth, but those who are seated with Christ in the heavenlies.

Paul closes this wonderful epistle in his usual manner:

²³Peace to the brothers and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁴Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love.

His prayer is for peace, love, faith, and grace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ to his readers, and his last phrase is “incorruptible love.”

Amen. Grace be with you.

Copyright © 2022 by Tom Adcox. All rights reserved. You may share this work with others, provided you do not alter it and do not sell it or use it for any commercial purpose. “Freely you have received, freely give” (Matthew 10.8). Also you must include this notice if you share it or any part of it.

Old Testament quotations are the author’s updates of the American Standard Version. Quotations from the New Testament are the author’s translations.