Ephesus

A Prisoner's Exhortations

I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles . . . beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.—Ephesians 3:1; 4:1

David Rice

The aged apostle Paul was within a few years of completing his ministry when he dictated those words. Ever since his third missionary journey, when he returned to Jerusalem for Pentecost to join his Jewish brethren, report the prospering work of the gospel among the Gentiles, and build a spirit of unity between the two, Paul had been in bonds.

It had not surprised Paul. As he had approached Jerusalem, “the holy spirit witness[ed] in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me” (Acts 20:23), as he told the Ephesian elders gathered for some last exhortations from him. He believed he would see Rome—“after I have been there [Jerusalem], I must also see Rome” (Acts 19:21)—and this was later confirmed by the Lord himself. “Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome” (Acts 23:11). Now he was in Rome where he was under house arrest, dwelling “two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him” (Acts 28:30).

None of his experiences swayed him from his consecrated goals. “None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy” (Acts 20:24). Though in bonds, he was still using his strength, opportunities, and abilities to minister spiritually, and wrote several epistles, among them the one titled “Ephesians.”

There is some question about those to whom this epistle was addressed. Verse 1 says “the saints which are at Ephesus,” but the city designation is absent in the Sinaitic and Vatican 1209 manuscripts. This opens the possibility that the epistle was intended as an encyclical letter to a number of churches, or that it may be the otherwise missing letter to the Laodiceans mentioned in Colossians 4:16. “When this epistle [to the Colossians] is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea.”

Colosse and Laodicea were only a few miles apart. “Colossians” and “Ephesians” are similar epistles, covering similar topics. They were both written from Rome, and were both conveyed by Tychicus (Ephesians 6:21; Colossians 4:7). If it were generally supposed that this epistle was originally addressed to the Laodiceans, it is not unlikely that it would absorb the attention of today's brethren, of the Laodicean stage of the church, even more than it has.

The Authority of His Position

Paul repeatedly referred to his special charge for the brethren, perhaps not so much in defense as to focus the minds of the brethren on the godly counsel he gives them. “Ye have ten thousand instructors” he told the Corinthians, “yet have ye not many fathers” (1 Corinthians 4:15). Though there were many helpful instructors, Paul probably observed that their teachings were not all equally effective as his ministry in instilling the truth and its principles among the brethren. “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God . . . for you Gentiles, if ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward . . . I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God . . . that I should preach among the Gentiles . . . to make all men to see what is the fellowship of the mystery . . . I am an ambassador in bonds . . . I ought to speak” (Ephesians 1:1; 3:1,2,7-9; 6:20).

In verse 2 Paul opened in his usual style: “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” He repeated this greeting in all his ecclesia epistles, but never added “and from the holy spirit,” as he surely would have done had he supposed the latter to be a person, equal with the others, in some kind of trinity. Further, he expressly affirmed in verse three that God is superior, “the God . . . of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This he repeats in verse 17, “The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father” (NIV).

God's Foreordained Plan

The next three verses express God's predestination of the great privileges we have in Christ, including the adoption as sons which we will secure if we prove faithful. In verse 7 the “redemption through his blood” is equated with “the forgiveness of sins,” which is consistent with Paul's affirmation in Romans 5:9 that we are “justified by his blood.”

Verse 8 includes among the blessings “lavished on us,” “wisdom and prudence.” The latter word is really another term to express a form of wisdom, “prudent, sensible, practically wise” (Vine's Expository Dictionary). These terms refer not to our grasp of the facts of the divine plan, but our ability, something like philosophers, to evaluate, distinguish and apply the sense of the spiritual information we have. These fruits of the spirit are noble qualities which all of the Lord's people have to some extent, and should cultivate by continued use.

Verse 9 does refer to our grasp of the facts of the divine plan: “He made known to us the mystery” (NIV). Mysteries, as used in the New Testament, do not mean incomprehensible ideas too high for us to appreciate (a claim sometimes made for the trinity). They refer to things unknown to the world but revealed to us through the influence of the holy spirit, who “Holding . . . the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience” (1 Timothy 3:9).

The majesty of Paul's expression is elegantly rendered in the Weymouth translation. The mystery we see is “God's merciful purpose for the government of the world when the times are ripe for it—the purpose which he has cherished in his own mind of restoring the whole creation to find its one Head in Christ; yes, things in heaven and things on earth, to find their one Head in him.”

In verses 11-13 Paul continues the thought of the church being “predestined according to the purpose of him,” and then introduces a subject he will raise a number of times, namely that Gentiles now had an equal standing with Jews in the gospel. “We [Jews], who were the first to hope in Christ . . . and you [Gentiles] also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation” (NIV). These also were sealed by Christ with the holy spirit.

This thought continues into verse 14, “which is the earnest of our inheritance.” Rotherham changes this only in the article, “an” rather than “the.” The NIV and some others succumb to bias by using “who” rather than “which,” supposing the holy spirit to be a person. The pronoun is in the neuter gender (to agree with the gender of “spirit”), rather than the masculine which one might find if the reference were to a person.

The remainder of verse 14 reads “until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory” (NIV). This is a paraphrase (the word “God” is not in the Greek), but it probably captures the thought. The King James version uses “purchased possession.” These two words come from the one Greek word peripoyeesis, which appears also in 1 Peter 2:9, “chosen” people (NIV) or “peculiar [special]” people (KJV). Literally it means that which is acquired (as through purchase for example). In the latter text it clearly refers to the church, and evidently does in Ephesians 1:14 as well. The holy spirit is an earnest, or guarantee, of our inheritance until our deliverance comes.

The Grandeur of our Call

In the next few verses Paul expressed joy and thanks to God for the reported faith of the brethren to whom Paul was writing. Paul's whole life was so consumed with his calling, his very emotions were excited by the fruitage God gave through his and others' labors. Paul's urgent desire was for them to be more and more filled with “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him [God]” (verse 17).

He wished them to grasp the remarkable nature of their call, so grand, so lofty, that even with somber reflection we may not fully appreciate it. “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you.” It was not that they had no idea, but that they might appreciate the magnificence of it, “the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe” (verse 18, NIV). To comprehend the splendor of our hope would magnify our praise, encourage our participation in the Lord's work, and help us abandon earthly trifles.

Verse 23 says the church, “which is his body,” is “the fullness of him that filleth all in all.” There are two expressions in this verse which engage our attention. The first is “the fullness of him.” Paul means that the church is the “fullness” of Christ. This probably means we are an expression of the character and likeness of Christ, our head, master, and pattern. This helps us grasp Paul's meaning elsewhere when he says of Christ, “in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead [deity] bodily” (Colossians 2:9). This is not some mumbo-jumbo for an incomprehensible allusion to a trinity. It merely states that in Christ dwell the qualities of God, just as in the church dwell the qualities of Christ.

The second expression is “that filleth all in all.” That this refers to Christ is supported by Ephesians 4:10, “He who descended [into the grave] is himself also he who ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things” (NASB). In what sense does he “fill all things”? Does it mean, as in the NIV and Weymouth, “to fill the whole universe”? Is he that large? It is difficult to get a sensible view from this rendering. Even on a literal level, he would not “fill the universe” if he ascended “far above all the heavens.”

The word “fill” is from the Greek verb pleroo which often means “accomplish, fulfill” (Vine's Expository Dictionary, meaning II). It is the word used numerous times by Matthew when he says a Scripture was “fulfilled” by this or that episode of Christ's experiences. It also appears in Luke 9:31, “his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.” Thus Christ is the one in whom all of God's purposes are fulfilled, or accomplished.

Chapter 2

In verses 1 through 7 Paul repeats some of the thoughts expressed in chapter 1. “You” (Gentiles) who were dead in sin, in the sway of Satan, “by nature children of wrath,” have ­received God's mercy and grace, and been quickened “together with Christ.” (See also Colossians 2:13.) The Greek says, literally, “raised us with” and “seated us with” Christ. The word “with” is the Greek prefix sun in each case. We are raised “with” Christ in the same experience, though separated by many years.

It is significant to note how Paul uses this term “with” because he uses it later where it is sometimes misapprehended, namely 1 Thessalonians 4:17, “caught up together with [sun] them.” We share with them the same experience, but not at the same time. The saints of past ages are resurrected “first” and we gathered to be with them “after that” (NIV).

The quickening Paul spoke of in Ephesians is our present experience, walking in “newness of life” (Romans 6:4). But this is only the prelude to the glories beyond. “That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus” (verse 7). Here again Paul expressed the grandeur of our call which is beyond our full appreciation.

Verse 8 affirms again that our salvation is by God's grace, though secured through faith, “and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” It may be wondered, from the English versions, whether the “gift of God” means “grace” or “faith.” It is neither. The “it” refers to our salvation. The word “grace” is chariti, the word “faith” is pistews. Both are feminine nouns. But the word “it” is masculine as is the verb “having been saved” (Greek: seswsmenoi). This is “not of works” (verse 9), as for example the works of the law, but “through faith” (verse 8). We are to be engaged in good works as a result of our standing (verse 10), but it is not the cause of our standing.

The Twain Made One

Verses 11-19 assure these brethren, “Gentiles in the flesh,” formerly aliens “from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world,” that Christ's death has put an end to this estrangement. “Ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.” Paul likens the removal of the barrier against the Gentiles to the breaking down of the “middle wall of partition” in the temple, beyond which Gentiles could not proceed.

Thus by his death Christ made “in himself of twain [Jew and Gentile] one new man [the body of Christ], so making peace [between these two parts, and between them and God] . . . that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross . . . and preached peace to you which were afar off [Gentiles], and to them that were nigh [Jews].” Thus “through him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father”—a kind of access not previously available to either.

Paul continues this theme into chapter 3. This joint inheritance of Jew and Gentile into one body in Christ is a mystery, “Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and [New Testament] prophets [cf. Revelation 18:20] by the spirit: that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel” (verses 5, 6).

Chapter 4

Paul has now covered the doctrinal points of his letter, and proceeds to the more purely admonitional portions in the last three chapters. He seems primarily concerned about the spirit among them in their worship and ecclesia. In light of the lofty call they have graciously received, they should “walk worthy” of this vocation “with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love” (verse 2). What better qualities to mark our disposition one to another?

The endeavor always is to “keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace” (verse 3). There is, after all, but one body, and one spirit, and one hope: one calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all. Should not our fellowship reflect this spirit, always? Or do impatience, unkindness, insistence, even indignation, intrude to separate the bonds of fraternal appreciation? Let it not be so with us. Let us demonstrate fidelity to the principles Paul admonishes. By this means let us show our respect for this apostle's life work and counsel.

One of the benefits Christ has endowed us with are the various servants in the ecclesia, apostles [sent out ones], prophets [expounders], evangelists [those who witness], pastors, and teachers. Paul says these are among the “gifts” from our Lord, which he gave us after he ­“ascended on high,” as prophesied in Psalm 68:18. Let us then cooperate with these dear laborers. Let us shun a sullen spirit, a rancorous tone, a hostile inflection, and instead cooperate with the great shepherd by cooperating with the under-shepherds (verses 7-13).

Paul further advises us to avoid the immorality of the world (verses 17-24), which are “deceitful lusts.” The vices of the world today are more accessible than they have ever been. They can come into our homes through the airwaves, and even to our desktops through our computers. Let us resolve that chastity of thought and conduct will be a bedrock of our walk in Christ. We are to “put on the new man,” which is righteous and holy.

Paul details other sins to avoid: lying, unbridled anger, giving place to the devil, stealing. These are fundamental issues of Christian ­conduct, but Paul deemed it wise to mention them, and it is wise for us to be resolute about them. “Labor, working with [our] hands the thing which is good, that [we] may have to give to him that needeth.” Let us forbid ourselves from corrupt communication, but rather speak words of grace and edification. Do we speak of mundane, earthly things at our meetings? Let us endeavor to concentrate on edifying things (verses 25-29).

“Grieve not the holy spirit of God.” Bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, evil speaking, malice—these should be eliminated. Do we harbor some bitterness toward sanctified brethren? Let us root it out. Instead, be “kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another,” as Christ left us an example (verses 30-32).

Chapter 5

Paul reminds us of Christ's “sweet-smelling savor” of sacrifice, a term which in the Old Testament usually applies to burnt offerings, and to portions of the sin-offering burnt on the brazen altar. The love he showed in sacrifice should be the love exhibited among ourselves. It almost goes without saying that the impure deeds of the flesh are incompatible with this, but Paul does list them: fornication, uncleanness, covetousness. These are things which should “not be once named among you, as becometh saints” (verse 3). He adds also filthiness, foolish speech, and jesting, to be substituted with thanksgiving (verse 4).

The fruit of light should engage us, the fruit of darkness should be repulsed (verses 5-13). Verse 14, “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light,” may be a reference to Jesus' words in John 5:25. We are to walk circumspectly, redeeming the time, be filled with the spirit, encouraging one another with the noble sentiments of psalms and hymns, always thankful, and always humble (verses 15-21). There seems to be very little of practical conduct that Paul did not itemize for us, as he meditated during his house arrest, what would be of value to the saints in living a consecrated life. These words were intended to be read in the churches, reviewed, considered, and imbibed. Let us, along with the original recipients, live these exhortations also.

In verses 22-33 Paul turns his attention to some needful domestic concerns. What a treasure of advice for the humbly minded are in these few verses. If all wives were respectful of their husbands, after the manner we wish to show respect for the headship of Christ, how much of the wrangling in marriage would cease? What would a husband not do for a wife who faithfully exhibited this spirit? If you are a wife, troubled by conflicts in marriage, what may be the results of following this advice? Would it soften the heart of your spouse?

Husbands are also to take a lesson from Christ's example. He loved the church so much as to give his life for them. Do we exhibit this kind of care for our wives? If husbands cared for their wives “as their own bodies,” would not our wives be all the more careful to respect our leadership in the affairs of home and family? If you are a husband, troubled by conflicts in marriage, what might result from making it apparent to your wife, in thoughtful and constant ways which would be meaningful to her, that your heart's affections are with her? Would this soften the heart of your spouse?

Chapter 6

In the final chapter Paul extends his family counsel to children and fathers, servants and masters, advising respect and faithfulness by those under authority, and temperance and fairness by those exercising authority. Children should honor their fathers; fathers should raise their children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (verses 1-4). Servants should render their service as unto Christ, and masters should remember “your Master also is in heaven” (verses 1-9).

“Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might” (verse 10). This is the introduction to an examination of the Christian armor, reminding us that the enemies in our warfare are wicked spirits of great potency (verse 12). Against such enemies we need the girdle of Truth, breastplate of Righteousness, sandals of Peace, shield of Faith, helmet of Salvation, and sword of the Spirit, “which [neuter, referring to Spirit, see Marshall's Dia­glott footnote] is the word of God” (verse 17).

This is our equipment. But beyond this proper attire, we must conduct ourselves with “prayer and supplication in the spirit,” watchfulness, and perseverance (verse 18).

Paul concludes by asking prayers on his behalf, not for a lessening of his burden, but for faithfulness in his opportunities, that “I may speak boldly” (verse 20). Tychicus, his assistant and messenger, would fill them in on his various other circumstances when he arrived. Then Paul closed as he opened, wishing on his readers “peace to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all . . . Amen.”