Bible Studies at Sydney Synod 1997

Studies in Ephesians

Delivered at the Synod of the Diocese of Sydney, Australia, in October 1997 by the Rev. Dr. Peter O'Brien, Senior Research Fellow of Moore Theological College, Sydney, Australia

Study 1, Ephesians 1:9-10 (October 14 1997)

Study 2, Ephesians 2:14-18 (October 15 1997)

Study 3, Ephesians 4:1-6 (October 23 1997)

Study 4, Ephesians 5:15-21 (October 24 1997)

STUDY 1.

Ephesians 1:9, 10

'He [God] has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth' (NRSV).

Ephesians is an amazing New Testament letter, with some surprising emphases. There are more references per page in this epistle to evil powers and principalities than any other book of the New Testament, perhaps even the whole Bible. Correspondingly, the almighty power of God is mentioned more often in Ephesians than anywhere else in Paul, indeed, probably in all the New Testament. What is more, this epistle speaks about issues of unity from start to finish.

But one of the most attractive features which draws us to this letter is that in a short space it presents the whole sweep of God's wonderful purposes. This is the epistle that spells out for us 'God's big picture'. In a dozen verses (1:3-14) Paul gives us an overview of the divine plans for humanity, for the world, even for the whole universe. This paragraph leads us from eternity to eternity, from before creation when God chose men and women to be his sons and daughters right through to his final goal - the summing up or gathering together all things in Christ. It is God's intention to bring everything back into unity under the rule of his Son, the Lord Jesus.

What is more, God has already taken a number of decisive steps in order to bring this plan to fruition. All is not finished. The actual summing up, the last stage in the process, has not taken placeyet. The 'fulness of time' has not come. But the most decisive event, at the centre of history, has occurred. I refer to the Lord Jesus' death through which 'we have redemption' (v. 7).

That God has made known to us his plan is evidence of his incredible kindness. He has not left us in the dark. That the Lord of the universe should tell us openly what he intends to do is frankly amazing. He is not some celestial deity who keeps his cards close to his chest, who refuses to commit himself to his people, or who has other intentions that are self-serving and which he will lay out on the table only later on. On the contrary, 'he has made known to us the mystery of his will', the apostle tells us (v. 9), and the content of that 'mystery' is his intention to sum up everything in the Lord Jesus.

Let me focus briefly on two features of this mighty purpose. First, it has to do with the whole universe. God will sum up 'everything' in the Lord Jesus Christ, he will bring the whole universe into unity under his control. Paul unpackages this a little, telling us that the whole of creation consists of two spheres, 'the things in heaven' and 'those on earth'. How is the heavenly sphere handled in the divine plan? Well, 'the heavenlies' are represented by the 'powers' throughout Ephesians. In relation to these evil authorities God has mightily raised Christ from the dead and exalted him to a position of unparallelled honour above every hostile spiritual agency. He has enthroned his Son as Lord overevery foe. The whole hierarchy of authorities, even death itself, is subject to the risen and exalted Lord. They have become his footstool.

The representative of 'the things on earth' is the church, God's people. As part of the divine plan we have been brought into a relationship with the Father, we have been joined to the Lord Jesus Christ and blessed with every spiritual blessing in him.

The second feature of God's purpose is that the Lord Jesus stands at the centre. Everything will be summed up 'in Christ'. Jesus is not simply the agent, the instrument, the functionary through whom it occurs. He is the focal point - all the planning of God's purposes, its execution - everything are achieved in his Anointed Son. Jesus has been in on this from the very beginning. He is the true VIP.

Our response should be one of praise. Paul urges his first readers to join with him in thanking the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is to be worshipped and adored for the incredible things he has done. As we meet together, we have important issues to address, we have significant questions to resolve. But how vital are these matters in the light of God's declared intentions for the universe? Let us resolve to bring our thinking, our cherished ambitions, which are finally subject to his 'yes' or 'no' anyway, into line with God's gracious purposes.

STUDY 2.

Ephesians 2:14-18

14 For he [Christ] himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17 He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. (NIV).

"Peace" is a slippery word. It means different things to different people. Two middle-eastern leaders being interviewed separately on TV the other night spoke of peace. At first it seemed that these men on opposite sides of the conflict were talking about the same thing. But their agendas were at cross purposes, they meant something different when they used this word.

"Peace" in Ephesians 2 is moving on a higher plane. But, it is still important, in fact, it is central to the letter. In our first study we saw that it was God's intention to bring all things together into unity under the Lord Jesus, and that God had already taken a number of decisive steps to bring this plan to fruition. The most significant event of all is Christ's peace-making work on the cross.

Let's look at several features of this peace in Ephesians: first, it is Christ-centred and costly. For most in our contemporary society peace is a thing, an 'it', sometimes a feeling. Often it is negative: the absence of war, strife or dissension. But the 'peace' of Ephesians 2 is personal and positive, it focusses on Christ himself. He not only brings peace and reconciliation; he is this peace. In other words, he is our salvation. What is more, this salvation has been won at great cost. Three times in as many verses (vv.13, 14, 15) the apostle hammers home the truth that the price of achieving this reconciliation was enormous, the violent sacrificial death of God's Messiah. This message was fundamental to the apostolic proclamation, and it must be central to our preaching and teaching as well.Secondly, the peace that Christ has won is comprehensive. Why? Because ultimately it deals with allthe dreadful issues of the human predicament: sin, rebellion, judgment and disunity. Earlier in chapter 2 Paul described the awful plight of men and women outside of Christ. They were dead in trespasses and sins (v.1), they were objects of wrath (v.3), and though they thought they were alive and free, they were in a terrible bondage to their own thoughts and desires, to worldly values and to evil forces (vv.2, 3). Before the Ephesians were converted they were rank outsiders: they had no contact with God's people, they knew nothing about God's plan of saving men and women. They were 'without hope and without God'. Oh sure, they had many substitute deities. But they had no knowledge of the one true God, and so no hope of eternal life.

Furthermore, their horizontal relationships were wholly out of synchronisation. In our passage Paul focusses on the alienation between Jews and Gentiles, the great divide of the ancient world. Christ's peace-making work dealt a mortal blow to this long-standing division. He destroyed the 'dividing wall of hostility' that separated Jews from Gentiles - the law with all its prescriptions and regulations. In his one mighty act of reconciliation Christ brought Jew and Gentile together, and reconciled both of them to God. Through his cross Christ has made them friends with God and friends with each other. The peace which Christ embodies and brings is comprehensive because it deals with both the horizontal and the vertical relationships, all the dreadful issues of the human predicament.

Finally, Christ's peace is completed or finished. We are told that having won this peace, this salvation, Christ came and announced it through his apostles (v.17). The work of reconciliation could now be shouted from the housetops so that all could hear and receive it for themselves.

Human peace is not like the peace of Christ. It is neither comprehensive nor complete. It does not deal with the vertical relationship, the need for friendship with God. It cannot cope with the temporal dimension - death. And it is unable to achieve lasting relationships even at the horizontal level. Is it any wonder that the Old Testament can speak of God's peace as the only one that is 'true', 'real' or worthwhile.

We have good reasons for giving thanks to God today. We need to demonstrate Christ's peace in this Synod as we relate to one another. As outsiders put the spotlight on us let show that Christ moves amongst us today, just as he moved in the midst of the seven churches long ago. And let us humbly but confidently share Christ's peace with others. It is much too precious to keep to ourselves.

STUDY 3.

Ephesians 4:1-6

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace (v.3).

Evangelical Christians are always a little uneasy when the subject of unity is raised. It is often pressed upon us when we have significant differences of opinion with others, and they want us to bend to their views. We are sometimes cast as tough-minded, divisive, and more concerned about truth than Christian love.

In Ephesians 4, at a critical turning point in the letter, the command to unity is laid down. It is not an optional extra. In the first three chapters Paul has been writing about the amazing, eternal purposes of God and their outworking in history. Through Jesus Christ who died for sinners God has been creating a new society. He has not only been giving new life to men and women as individuals. He has also been fashioning a new humanity out of a fractured and twisted world. There are tremendous privileges in belonging to God's new people. Now the apostle speaks of the new standards expected within that society. He turns from what God has done to what he expects of his people, from statement to exhortation, from mind-stretching theology to concrete implications in everyday living. We are urged to live a life worthy of our calling, which covers every aspect of our lives, and at the heart of this is the exhortation to unity (v. 3). Let us raise a few questions as we try to understand it:

How important is this unity? According to the apostle, it is no trifling matter, but an issue of great urgency. Paul uses a strong word in the original to express as forcibly as he can the profound importance of this exhortation. This term, rendered 'make every effort', focusses on the total response and determination of each person, and it draws to our attention the need for haste and passion. This exhortation excludes a wait and see attitude, it is the opposite of being passive, of going quiet, of refusing to take the initiative and letting others make the running.

Is Paul talking about unity at any price? Certainly not. Truth is precious: six times over in a few paragraphs Paul shows that God's truth undergirds everything. What is more, unity and truth are not sought at the expense of love. Apart from 1 Cor.13, there is a greater stress on doing things in love here in Ephesians than anywhere else in Paul's letters.

But the most profound motivation for our energetic pursuit of this unity of the Spirit is the fundamental unity on which the whole Christian life is based. I refer to the seven articles of faith in vv.4-6. The apostle moves from the oneness of the church to the oneness of its Lord and to the oneness of our God-'one Spirit', 'one Lord' and 'one God'. 'The unity of the Spirit' is finally grounded in the unity of the triune God. We are not expected to be united with Mormons, JWs, etc. But we are to maintain this unity with those who are committed to these seven articles of the apostolic faith.

What does the unity of the Spirit mean? It is an unusual expression. It must be the unity which God's Spirit creates. We don't create it, but we are expected to maintain it, which indicates it already exists. God has brought about this unity through the death of Christ and as a result, believers - both Jew and Gentile - have been reconciled to God 'in one Spirit'.

What is the rationale for maintaining this unity? The church is God's pilot scheme, his masterpiece of reconciliation, and it is his pattern for the whole universe (Eph.3:10). Jews and Gentiles in the ancient world were opposed to one another. Their being in Christ within the one congregation was testimony to the spiritual powers and authorities in the heavenly realm. The very existence of this kind of church is an open declaration to these powers that their end is near, that God's plan to sum up all things in Christ is moving triumphantly to its climax. The church is his masterpiece, his Rembrandt, which he displays to the whole universe.

How disastrous, then, is it for believers to behave as though we were not reconciled to God at all or to one another. This is to say that Jesus' work of reconciliation has had no real effects on our lives. That Christ's being our peace was a waste of time, that his reconciling us to his Father and to others did not matter.

How is this unity achieved? Well, here's the rub. Paul spells out several graces of Christ, humility, gentleness, patience, and love, which are necessary for this goal of unity to be achieved. Without this fruit of the Spirit in our lives, we cannot obey this exhortation to maintain unity in the body of Christ. So we need to make a conscious decision to be gentle, patient and forbearing with those in Christ with whom we disagree. May God enable us to heed his word addressed to us today.

STUDY 4.

Ephesians 5:15-21

"Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead be filled by the Spirit"

'Be filled with the Spirit' is the catchcry of many contemporary Christians. For some it is their divinely inspired charter of Christian liberty, of personal fulfilment and freedom. What is more, this kind of fulness stands over against another sort, a classic mark of our society, 'being full of booze, or drunk with wine' (v.18). In contrast to what is going on around us, according to some Christians, God says to his children: 'Get your highs on the Spirit not on intoxicating drink!' This liberty and freedom are worked out in a variety of ways, but one wonders whether it is a Christian variation of 'doing one's own thing', a mark of Australian society.

Let me hasten to add, however, that Ephesians 5:18 is an unusual text. It has no parallel anywhere else in the Bible. So let us ask some questions to the verse in order to help us:

What is the context? We are to obey the exhortation, 'Be filled by the Spirit', because, as Paul puts it in v.15, this is part and parcel of living carefully, or of understanding the Lord's will (v.17). Such obedience is all of a piece with what we have seen previously, namely, of living worthily of our calling (4:1). We are to heed this admonition to be filled by the Spirit because we belong to Christ, and because we are part of God's marvellous purposes of summing up everything in his Son.

So how do we translate the words? The expression should be rendered, 'Be filled by the Spirit, not 'with the Spirit'. The text means that the Holy Spirit is the agent, the one by whom believers are filled. He is not some sort of celestial fluid that fills us earthly bottles; he is not the content of the fulness. He is the agent who fills us.

So what is the content? What are we filled with? Earlier references to fulness language in Ephesians focus our attention on the fulness of Christ or of God. In chapter 1:23 the church is Christ's body and already shares his fulness. In Paul's prayer of 3:19, he intercedes for his Christian readers that they will 'be filled to all the fulness of [the triune] God'. According to 4:13 the final goal to which the body of Christ is moving is mature manhood, and this is described in terms of the fulness of Christ (4:13). All of these references, then, are speaking about (the triune) God in his fulness or Christ in his fulness. There is no separate statement in Ephesians about the Spirit as the fulness.

What then does the Spirit do? The Holy Spirit is hard at work filling us with God's fulness, in other words, day by day he is transforming us into the likeness of God and Christ. The Spirit so fills us with Christ that increasingly we become like him. Another way of putting it is to be subject to the Spirit's control, through Christ's word the Scriptures. Paul describes the same thing in Colossians 3 when he says, 'Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly'. To be filled by the Spirit simply means to come under the lordship of Christ, as the Spirit makes us more like Christ in his fulness.

How should we respond? The first thing to note is that Paul addresses us with an exhortation, not a statement. He uses an imperative not an indicative. Furthermore, it is a present imperative which indicates that the Spirit's infilling is to be ongoing or continual in our lives. We do not fill ourselves (the verb 'be filled' is a passive), but we are to be receptive to the Spirit's transforming work, as he makes us into Christ's likeness. We are to let Christ's word rule our lives. As this happens we will live carefully, wisely (5:15) and worthily of our calling (4:1).

How can we check it out? If all Christians are urged to be filled by the Spirit, and this is to be an ongoing response, then how can we tell whether we are being obedient to this word of God? Unfortunately, our English translations do not help us a great deal. In the original, the exhortation to be filled by the Spirit, is followed by five participles which are dependent on the imperative: 'speaking', 'singing songs', 'making music' (v.19), 'giving thanks' (v.20) and 'submitting' (v.21). They are all participles of result, and describe the outworking of the Spirit's infilling believers with Christ. Accordingly, those who heed this word of God, this unusual but precious exhortation, will live lives that are characterized by joyful singing, thanksgiving, and submission. And the apostle makes it plain, in his following household table, that relationships within marriage, the family and the workplace will be different.

If drunkenness is what characterizes the pagan world with its destructive and unacceptable lifestyle (and this is what Paul means), then we as Christians are to be different. We are to be filled by the Spirit, we are to be made more like the Lord Jesus, and the results will be evident. Let all of us who have ears to hear, hear what the Spirit says to this congregation gathered in Christ's name? Amen.

The Rev. Dr. Peter O'Brien stepped down as Vice-principal of Moore Theological College, Sydney in late 2000. He continues as a valued member of the lecturing staff and is also the College's first Senior Research Fellow.

He is the author of commentaries on Philippians (in the New International Greek Testament Commentary series), Colossians (in the Word Biblical Commentary series) and Ephesians (in the Pillar New Testament Commentary series). Dr. O'Brien is also an Emeritus Vice-President of the ACL.

In July 2000 he was presented with a volume written in his honour - "The Gospel to the Nations" (Apollos and Intervarsity Press) - edited by Peter Bolt and Mark Thompson.

Copyright (C) 1997 Anglican Church League, Sydney, Australia. Reproduced with the kind permission of Dr. O'Brien.

Anglican Church League, www.acl.asn.au