“Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12). The joy of our union with Christ and being fellow heirs with the Jews of the promise is best kept fresh and rich in our minds by remembering where we came from. We must remember everyday that we were once separated from Christ and excluded from the covenant promises. We were without God in this world.
God in his great mercy and love reached out across the chasm of sin and time and touched us with the renewing work of the Holy Spirit, placing in our new hearts a desire and faith in Christ. God circumcised our hearts. We became heirs of the promise by God’s grace and mercy and kindness. We came from lost, blind, dead cold spiritually sinners to living breathing, seeing and knowing the way children of God. Oh how great the Fathers love for us!
Friday, October 26, 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
The Mystery Given to Paul
“This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Eph 3:6). Paul was appointed by God to be an apostle to the Gentiles, Acts 9:15, 1 Tim 2:7, Paul’s purpose was to bring the message that gentiles are now fellow heirs with the Jews in salvation and reconciliation to God. Why does Paul call it a mystery?
False teachers were trying to convince the Ephesians that the true knowledge of God was a “mystery” that was only revealed to those with special knowledge. They also degraded Paul as not being a possessor of secret knowledge, the mystery. In Paul’s absence the Ephesians were easily fooled by these false teachers. So when Paul wrote his letter he addressed this challenge to his apostolic authority and revelation from God.
Paul in answering his opponents also went back to the central message of his preaching, a message that gentiles now are reconciled to God through Christ. While the false teachers sought to imprison new believers with a religion of self effort to reach God, Paul strongly called out to the Ephesians that man cannot reach God by his own works and that the work of Christ is the central focus of their faith.
In our day of pluralism and self-help culture Paul’s message could not be more relevant in our time. Once again Scripture shows its timelessness by speaking directly to the heart of our culture’s sickness and disease. You cannot work your way to God and no amount of meditation, intellectual pursuit or moralistic behavior will reconcile you to God. The only hope for salvation and true happiness is faith in the work and person of Christ, the one giving us the promise in his gospel.
False teachers were trying to convince the Ephesians that the true knowledge of God was a “mystery” that was only revealed to those with special knowledge. They also degraded Paul as not being a possessor of secret knowledge, the mystery. In Paul’s absence the Ephesians were easily fooled by these false teachers. So when Paul wrote his letter he addressed this challenge to his apostolic authority and revelation from God.
Paul in answering his opponents also went back to the central message of his preaching, a message that gentiles now are reconciled to God through Christ. While the false teachers sought to imprison new believers with a religion of self effort to reach God, Paul strongly called out to the Ephesians that man cannot reach God by his own works and that the work of Christ is the central focus of their faith.
In our day of pluralism and self-help culture Paul’s message could not be more relevant in our time. Once again Scripture shows its timelessness by speaking directly to the heart of our culture’s sickness and disease. You cannot work your way to God and no amount of meditation, intellectual pursuit or moralistic behavior will reconcile you to God. The only hope for salvation and true happiness is faith in the work and person of Christ, the one giving us the promise in his gospel.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
God’s Wisdom and Love
“In whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him” (Eph 3:12). In verse 11 Paul makes it clear the person in whom we have faith is Christ Jesus. What is it we have access too? It is the mystery Paul talks about in verse 6, “This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” We have access through Christ just like the Jews do, because Christ reconciled both gentiles and Jews (2:16). Again what do we have access to? We have access to the Father, “For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father” (Eph 2:18).
All through this passage, starting with 2:11 and going through 3:13, Paul is describing what Christ has done and why it is so that both Jews and Gentiles are brought to God and reconciled to him. Even more we are reconciled into one people group (2:14-15)! Paul boldly makes the statement, as biblical truth, that all who are in Christ, by receiving Him in faith, are reconciled to God, whom we have been estranged and at enmity with because of the Law (2:14-17), and we are all one body, one church. This is where Paul’s statement in 3:10 starts to take on real force, “so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (Eph 3:10). God’s wisdom is made known, to the heavenly beings, by taking the splintered and fractured people groups of the world, the ones who are also estranged from Him because of our sin, and reconciling them to Himself and making them one people through Christ work on the Cross.
The ironic truth in these statements by Paul is that although we can acknowledge them and begin to understand them with our limited human understanding, we cannot truly see how amazing and dumbfounding they are because we do not see God and know God as the heavenly beings see and know God. Just as a fish does not understand what it means to live outside of water, so we do not understand how amazing it is to be sinners, live in this broken flesh and fallen world and then become reconciled to God. We cannot see how amazing this is because we do not know what it is like to see the universe as heavenly beings see the universe. We do not have the experience of life outside of this temporal world to compare our reconciliation to God to, just like the fish does not have an experience of living outside of his aquatic habitat to compare life in the water to. Just as we look at the fish and say, “You poor thing, you have no understanding of the whole world that exist around you because you cannot live outside of your watery home;” so also the heavenly beings look at us and say, “You have no idea how incredible your reconciliation as one people to God is because you cannot live outside of your fallen world.” We will not genuinely grasp the reality of this truth until we are in heaven. We are living the mystery that angels long to gaze into (1 Pet 1:12) and we don’t even know it.
With the limited understanding we have, let us gaze all the more into the Scriptures to see how special God’s love and wisdom are.
All through this passage, starting with 2:11 and going through 3:13, Paul is describing what Christ has done and why it is so that both Jews and Gentiles are brought to God and reconciled to him. Even more we are reconciled into one people group (2:14-15)! Paul boldly makes the statement, as biblical truth, that all who are in Christ, by receiving Him in faith, are reconciled to God, whom we have been estranged and at enmity with because of the Law (2:14-17), and we are all one body, one church. This is where Paul’s statement in 3:10 starts to take on real force, “so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (Eph 3:10). God’s wisdom is made known, to the heavenly beings, by taking the splintered and fractured people groups of the world, the ones who are also estranged from Him because of our sin, and reconciling them to Himself and making them one people through Christ work on the Cross.
The ironic truth in these statements by Paul is that although we can acknowledge them and begin to understand them with our limited human understanding, we cannot truly see how amazing and dumbfounding they are because we do not see God and know God as the heavenly beings see and know God. Just as a fish does not understand what it means to live outside of water, so we do not understand how amazing it is to be sinners, live in this broken flesh and fallen world and then become reconciled to God. We cannot see how amazing this is because we do not know what it is like to see the universe as heavenly beings see the universe. We do not have the experience of life outside of this temporal world to compare our reconciliation to God to, just like the fish does not have an experience of living outside of his aquatic habitat to compare life in the water to. Just as we look at the fish and say, “You poor thing, you have no understanding of the whole world that exist around you because you cannot live outside of your watery home;” so also the heavenly beings look at us and say, “You have no idea how incredible your reconciliation as one people to God is because you cannot live outside of your fallen world.” We will not genuinely grasp the reality of this truth until we are in heaven. We are living the mystery that angels long to gaze into (1 Pet 1:12) and we don’t even know it.
With the limited understanding we have, let us gaze all the more into the Scriptures to see how special God’s love and wisdom are.
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