Introduction: The lesson this week focuses on how Paul teaches the Ephesians—and us—to count our blessings. Not the blessings we think are important but the real blessings humanity needs so desperately. God, Paul emphasizes, gives these blessings to us in Christ. In Christ, we have been chosen and accepted by God. We are His, and He is ours. God treasures and regards us as His inheritance, and we treasure and regard Him as our inheritance. In Christ, we have been forgiven and redeemed. In Christ, we receive God’s supreme plan of salvation. In Christ, humanity has its only chance at unity and harmony. In Christ, we live full of joy and praise. Because of Christ, we receive God’s seal and a foretaste of eternal salvation. Because of Christ, we may receive the presence and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. God’s gifts are spiritual primarily in the sense that the Holy Spirit gives them to us. The Holy Spirit brings these gifts to us from the very realms of heaven. All these riches are God’s gifts to us all because we do not—and cannot—work to merit them. It is God who gives these gifts to us freely, out of His heart full of love for us. All who accept these gifts God predestines to be sealed and to taste beforehand the eternal blessings of His kingdom.
Lesson Themes: This week’s lesson highlights three major themes:
In Christ, God lavished on us many gifts: election, adoption, redemption, forgiveness, joy of salvation, unity and harmony of humanity, and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit as God’s down payment for what is yet to come when Christ will return.
Our response to God’s gracious gifts is a life of praise and adoration in, and for, Christ.
In the Holy Spirit, we experience a foretaste of our future eternal life.
Part II: Commentary
Christ Jesus Our Lord
It is important to note the way that Paul writes about our Savior. Rarely does Paul refer to Him as simply Jesus (Eph. 4:21). Rather, for Paul, our Savior is “Lord Jesus” (Eph. 1:15), “the Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph 1:2, 3, 17; Eph. 5:20; Eph. 6:23, 24), “Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph. 3:11), “Jesus Christ” (Eph. 1:5), “Christ Jesus” (Eph. 1:1; Eph. 2:6, 7, 10, 13, 20; Eph. 3:1, 6, 21), simply “Christ” (Eph. 1:10, 12; Eph. 2:5, 12, 13; Eph. 3:4, 8, 17, 19; Eph. 4:7, 13, 15, 20, 32; Eph. 5:1, 5, 21, 23, 24, 25, 29, 32; Eph. 6:5, 6), or simply “the Lord” (Eph. 2:21; Eph. 4:1, 5; Eph. 5:8, 10, 17, 19, 22; Eph. 6:7, 8, 10, 21)!
Obviously, one reason for these references to our Savior is reverence, which must be part of the Christian’s—indeed, of the Christian theologian’s—language and attitude. But there is more to these references than simple respect for the Master. By referring to Jesus as “the Lord,” Paul exalts Him as the risen Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior, in whom we have our own resurrection from our sins and through whom we are going to have our final resurrection from the grave. The resurrection of Jesus Christ and our own resurrection are crucial for Paul’s theology and life because they lie at the very heart of God’s redemptive plan (e.g., Eph. 2:1–6). The theme of resurrection transforms Paul’s entire perspective on life and salvation. It should be essential for ours, as well.
Doxological Theology
Paul wrote Ephesians 1:3–14 in a style we could call doxological theology. Theologians note that Christian theology must begin with doxology (praise) and end in doxology—indeed, must be doxology. Being among the first doxological theologians, Paul’s theology is not a cold, purely rational, schematic, and neutral development of a concept. Nor is Paul writing in this doxological way simply because of the customary epistolary style of the time. Rather, when he immortalizes in writing the beautiful Christian theology about who God is, about what God did for us, about God’s love for us, about the incarnation of Christ Jesus, about His death, about His resurrection, about the joy and peace and hope and profound transformation of humanity in Christ, Paul vividly contemplates and describes the most magnificent and foundational wonders of this life and the life to come. For this reason, while writing these things down for his brothers and sisters in Ephesus, Paul cannot abstain from erupting in worship and adoration of the great God he describes.
For Paul, God is not a mere concept; rather, God is our Father, our Creator, our Savior. This same God is full of love, might, justice, and grace. He always is ready to protect us and to save us. He always is ready to give us gifts and blessings so that we may enjoy our lives to the fullest in His kingdom, now and in the future. How could Paul write about such a God and about His great salvation without bursting into joyful praises?
Blessings From the Heavenly Places
Paul insists that our God is fundamentally a God of blessings. But the blessings that God gives us are not simply material or earthly blessings—blessings with no reference to spiritual or eternal realities. Rather, God’s blessings are blessings from the heavenly realms, from His realm. By pointing out this idea, Paul expands the theater of salvation. Salvation is not a minuscule solution to a small temporary human problem, although it includes that aspect, too. Salvation does not happen simply in a corner of the world (although, in one sense, it does, because Jesus died in a corner of the universe and in a corner of the Roman Empire). For Paul, salvation is a process that takes place on a universal scale. Paul takes us to the dizzying heights of the epouranios, or heavenly realms.
The Greek word epouranios has several meanings. On the one hand, it means spiritual or godly, as opposed to earthly or sinful (see John 3:12, Heb. 3:1). On the other hand, the word refers to spatial dimensions (1 Cor. 15:40, 41). Paul also combines both the spatial and the spiritual dimensions of the word epouranios together (1 Cor. 15:48, 49). For instance, the epouranios in Ephesians 1:3 seems to refer to a spiritual reality: that is, God blesses us with the blessings that are found in Christ. However, in the same chapter, Paul describes heaven as a spatial realm other than the earth (Eph. 1:10). In Ephesians 1:20, Paul relates the epouranios to Christ’s ascension to the throne of God. Paul’s heavenly places, thus, are not some ethereal neoplatonic spheres, describing the immaterial divine world to which our incorporeal, disembodied spirit allegedly travels after death.
Considering the larger biblical context, the notion of “heavenly places” is a very rich biblical concept. On the one hand, “the heavens” refers to the entire universe that God created (Gen. 1:1, Ps. 8:3, Ps. 19:1, 2 Chron. 6:18), with all of its magnificent beauty. On the other hand, the Bible depicts another meaning of the “heavens,” closer to Paul’s meaning in Ephesians, in which the apostle relates the heavenly places with Creation and salvation. When God created the universe, He did not remain outside the universe (the Bible does not espouse deism). Rather, God chose to enter the universe as its Creator, Provider, and King (Ps. 11:4) and to establish a special, personal relationship with the beings He created in His image (Gen. 1:26–28). This relationship is accomplished in various ways. One, in His omnipresence, God was, and is, present throughout the universe (Ps. 139:7, 8). This idea means that we can pray to God everywhere, in any situation, and He hears us in real time.
However, the Bible describes another way that God meets and relates to the population of the universe. Many biblical authors emphasize that God chose a realm or place in the heavens where He established His throne of love and justice (Ps. 103:19, 20). In that place, God displays His permanent visible presence and governance of the universe. It is in, and from, that heavenly place that God blesses the universe through His acts of loving providence. It was at His throne that He met with all His intelligent beings (Job 1:6); it is there that all the intelligent beings of the universe respond in worship and adoration to God’s presence, providence, and loving and just government.
The Bible associates the throne of God with the heavenly temple of God (Ps. 11:4; Ps. 103:19, 20; compare with Exod. 25:8, 9), God’s “heaven” or “dwelling place” (2 Chron. 6:21, 23, 25, 30, 33, 35, 39). In his dedicatory prayer, Solomon associated the temple with God’s heavenly dwelling place (see also 2 Chron 6:2, 18, 40, 41). It was against that throne in the heavenly sanctuary that Lucifer fought, accusing God of being unloving and having an unjust character and government. It was to that throne that Jesus ascended after He fully revealed and proved God’s character of love and of justice.
In his epistle to the Hebrews, Paul also associates the heavens with God’s throne and the heavenly sanctuary: “We have such a high priest, who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord set up, not man” (Heb. 8:1–3, NASB; see also Heb. 1:8; Heb. 4:16; Heb. 9:23–25; Heb. 12:2, 22–24). Thus, as in his epistle to the Hebrews, and also as Daniel (Daniel 7), Solomon (2 Chronicles 6), and later John (Revelation 4 and 5), Paul directs the attention of his readers to God’s heavenly place, to His throne and heavenly sanctuary, from which God blesses His people with all the blessings He intended in His original plans of Creation and of salvation in Christ.
Illustration: The Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter
In the past, numerous people died from accidental domestic electrocution. Modern houses are equipped with an ingenious protective device called a ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI). The GFCIs sense any difference in the current in the system and interrupt the electrical current in a matter of milliseconds. In this way, if a child plugs a metallic object into an outlet, the circuit interrupter will activate and stop the current and save the child from death. God planned to create our world and crown it with intelligent and free humans who could choose to reject God and sin. The consequences of sinning (like the consequence of touching a live electrical wire) result in the death of the sinner. God told Adam and Eve they would die in the moment or day that they sinned (Gen. 2:17). Yet, they did not die. On the contrary, they realized what had happened and ran away from God (Gen. 3:6, 7). It could be argued that the first pair died in a spiritual way or that they were condemned to death in the long run.
While these answers have merit, the gospel, especially as explained by Paul in Ephesians, gives a more complete answer to the question of why Adam and Eve did not die immediately for their sin. According to Paul, before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4), God built into the Creation plan a safety feature, a spiritual GFCI. When Adam and Eve fell into sin, they were supposed to die, because they touched the “bare wire” of sin. However, Adam and Eve did not die immediately, because the plan of salvation, created by God before the foundation of the world, was immediately activated. That plan was Christ, and whoever believes in Christ, whoever chooses to be found “in Christ,” is saved from the power and consequences of sin, guilt, alienation, and death.
Part III: Life Application
Brainstorm with your students about ways that they can, as a class, organize thanksgiving worship services in their personal lives, in their family life, in their communities, or in the local church. Each of these services could have different themes: thanksgiving for the plan of salvation and how it has transformed their personal lives, thanksgiving for the love of Christ as it is manifested in their personal lives and in the community, or thanksgiving for forgiveness as manifested in their personal lives and in the life of the community.
Ask your students to consider this question: How exalted are their communications? That is, how does the content of their everyday oral, written, or graphic communication reveal that their lives have been touched, and transformed, by the grace of God and by the worldview of the exalted Lord and His theology? How much do your class members feel they are affected by eternal realities in the heavenly places? How is the content and manner of their conversation like Paul’s? Ask your students to consider the ways in which they talk to family, friends, work colleagues, and people in public spaces. Challenge them to revise the way they write emails or messages on various social media platforms. Also, challenge them to revise the content of their personal conversations with family, friends, and colleagues to reflect Christ and to become more Christ-centered.
In Ephesians 1:5, Paul writes that God “predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (NASB). Many Christians take this text to mean that the apostle teaches the concept of predestination in the sense that God selects us to be saved and that we cannot do anything to resist His will or change His decision in this matter. How would your students explain this text to the following groups of people: (1) their Christian friends who believe in the concept of predestination and (2) their non-Christian friends or neighbors?
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Key Text: Ephesians 1:3
Study Focus: Eph. 1:3–14; Eph. 2:6; Eph. 3:10; Col. 1:13, 14; 1 Pet. 1:18, 19; Deut. 9:29.
Introduction: The lesson this week focuses on how Paul teaches the Ephesians—and us—to count our blessings. Not the blessings we think are important but the real blessings humanity needs so desperately. God, Paul emphasizes, gives these blessings to us in Christ. In Christ, we have been chosen and accepted by God. We are His, and He is ours. God treasures and regards us as His inheritance, and we treasure and regard Him as our inheritance. In Christ, we have been forgiven and redeemed. In Christ, we receive God’s supreme plan of salvation. In Christ, humanity has its only chance at unity and harmony. In Christ, we live full of joy and praise. Because of Christ, we receive God’s seal and a foretaste of eternal salvation. Because of Christ, we may receive the presence and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. God’s gifts are spiritual primarily in the sense that the Holy Spirit gives them to us. The Holy Spirit brings these gifts to us from the very realms of heaven. All these riches are God’s gifts to us all because we do not—and cannot—work to merit them. It is God who gives these gifts to us freely, out of His heart full of love for us. All who accept these gifts God predestines to be sealed and to taste beforehand the eternal blessings of His kingdom.
Lesson Themes: This week’s lesson highlights three major themes:
In Christ, God lavished on us many gifts: election, adoption, redemption, forgiveness, joy of salvation, unity and harmony of humanity, and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit as God’s down payment for what is yet to come when Christ will return.
Our response to God’s gracious gifts is a life of praise and adoration in, and for, Christ.
In the Holy Spirit, we experience a foretaste of our future eternal life.
Part II: Commentary
Christ Jesus Our Lord
It is important to note the way that Paul writes about our Savior. Rarely does Paul refer to Him as simply Jesus (Eph. 4:21). Rather, for Paul, our Savior is “Lord Jesus” (Eph. 1:15), “the Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph 1:2, 3, 17; Eph. 5:20; Eph. 6:23, 24), “Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph. 3:11), “Jesus Christ” (Eph. 1:5), “Christ Jesus” (Eph. 1:1; Eph. 2:6, 7, 10, 13, 20; Eph. 3:1, 6, 21), simply “Christ” (Eph. 1:10, 12; Eph. 2:5, 12, 13; Eph. 3:4, 8, 17, 19; Eph. 4:7, 13, 15, 20, 32; Eph. 5:1, 5, 21, 23, 24, 25, 29, 32; Eph. 6:5, 6), or simply “the Lord” (Eph. 2:21; Eph. 4:1, 5; Eph. 5:8, 10, 17, 19, 22; Eph. 6:7, 8, 10, 21)!
Obviously, one reason for these references to our Savior is reverence, which must be part of the Christian’s—indeed, of the Christian theologian’s—language and attitude. But there is more to these references than simple respect for the Master. By referring to Jesus as “the Lord,” Paul exalts Him as the risen Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior, in whom we have our own resurrection from our sins and through whom we are going to have our final resurrection from the grave. The resurrection of Jesus Christ and our own resurrection are crucial for Paul’s theology and life because they lie at the very heart of God’s redemptive plan (e.g., Eph. 2:1–6). The theme of resurrection transforms Paul’s entire perspective on life and salvation. It should be essential for ours, as well.
Doxological Theology
Paul wrote Ephesians 1:3–14 in a style we could call doxological theology. Theologians note that Christian theology must begin with doxology (praise) and end in doxology—indeed, must be doxology. Being among the first doxological theologians, Paul’s theology is not a cold, purely rational, schematic, and neutral development of a concept. Nor is Paul writing in this doxological way simply because of the customary epistolary style of the time. Rather, when he immortalizes in writing the beautiful Christian theology about who God is, about what God did for us, about God’s love for us, about the incarnation of Christ Jesus, about His death, about His resurrection, about the joy and peace and hope and profound transformation of humanity in Christ, Paul vividly contemplates and describes the most magnificent and foundational wonders of this life and the life to come. For this reason, while writing these things down for his brothers and sisters in Ephesus, Paul cannot abstain from erupting in worship and adoration of the great God he describes.
For Paul, God is not a mere concept; rather, God is our Father, our Creator, our Savior. This same God is full of love, might, justice, and grace. He always is ready to protect us and to save us. He always is ready to give us gifts and blessings so that we may enjoy our lives to the fullest in His kingdom, now and in the future. How could Paul write about such a God and about His great salvation without bursting into joyful praises?
Blessings From the Heavenly Places
Paul insists that our God is fundamentally a God of blessings. But the blessings that God gives us are not simply material or earthly blessings—blessings with no reference to spiritual or eternal realities. Rather, God’s blessings are blessings from the heavenly realms, from His realm. By pointing out this idea, Paul expands the theater of salvation. Salvation is not a minuscule solution to a small temporary human problem, although it includes that aspect, too. Salvation does not happen simply in a corner of the world (although, in one sense, it does, because Jesus died in a corner of the universe and in a corner of the Roman Empire). For Paul, salvation is a process that takes place on a universal scale. Paul takes us to the dizzying heights of the epouranios, or heavenly realms.
The Greek word epouranios has several meanings. On the one hand, it means spiritual or godly, as opposed to earthly or sinful (see John 3:12, Heb. 3:1). On the other hand, the word refers to spatial dimensions (1 Cor. 15:40, 41). Paul also combines both the spatial and the spiritual dimensions of the word epouranios together (1 Cor. 15:48, 49). For instance, the epouranios in Ephesians 1:3 seems to refer to a spiritual reality: that is, God blesses us with the blessings that are found in Christ. However, in the same chapter, Paul describes heaven as a spatial realm other than the earth (Eph. 1:10). In Ephesians 1:20, Paul relates the epouranios to Christ’s ascension to the throne of God. Paul’s heavenly places, thus, are not some ethereal neoplatonic spheres, describing the immaterial divine world to which our incorporeal, disembodied spirit allegedly travels after death.
Considering the larger biblical context, the notion of “heavenly places” is a very rich biblical concept. On the one hand, “the heavens” refers to the entire universe that God created (Gen. 1:1, Ps. 8:3, Ps. 19:1, 2 Chron. 6:18), with all of its magnificent beauty. On the other hand, the Bible depicts another meaning of the “heavens,” closer to Paul’s meaning in Ephesians, in which the apostle relates the heavenly places with Creation and salvation. When God created the universe, He did not remain outside the universe (the Bible does not espouse deism). Rather, God chose to enter the universe as its Creator, Provider, and King (Ps. 11:4) and to establish a special, personal relationship with the beings He created in His image (Gen. 1:26–28). This relationship is accomplished in various ways. One, in His omnipresence, God was, and is, present throughout the universe (Ps. 139:7, 8). This idea means that we can pray to God everywhere, in any situation, and He hears us in real time.
However, the Bible describes another way that God meets and relates to the population of the universe. Many biblical authors emphasize that God chose a realm or place in the heavens where He established His throne of love and justice (Ps. 103:19, 20). In that place, God displays His permanent visible presence and governance of the universe. It is in, and from, that heavenly place that God blesses the universe through His acts of loving providence. It was at His throne that He met with all His intelligent beings (Job 1:6); it is there that all the intelligent beings of the universe respond in worship and adoration to God’s presence, providence, and loving and just government.
The Bible associates the throne of God with the heavenly temple of God (Ps. 11:4; Ps. 103:19, 20; compare with Exod. 25:8, 9), God’s “heaven” or “dwelling place” (2 Chron. 6:21, 23, 25, 30, 33, 35, 39). In his dedicatory prayer, Solomon associated the temple with God’s heavenly dwelling place (see also 2 Chron 6:2, 18, 40, 41). It was against that throne in the heavenly sanctuary that Lucifer fought, accusing God of being unloving and having an unjust character and government. It was to that throne that Jesus ascended after He fully revealed and proved God’s character of love and of justice.
In his epistle to the Hebrews, Paul also associates the heavens with God’s throne and the heavenly sanctuary: “We have such a high priest, who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord set up, not man” (Heb. 8:1–3, NASB; see also Heb. 1:8; Heb. 4:16; Heb. 9:23–25; Heb. 12:2, 22–24). Thus, as in his epistle to the Hebrews, and also as Daniel (Daniel 7), Solomon (2 Chronicles 6), and later John (Revelation 4 and 5), Paul directs the attention of his readers to God’s heavenly place, to His throne and heavenly sanctuary, from which God blesses His people with all the blessings He intended in His original plans of Creation and of salvation in Christ.
Illustration: The Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter
In the past, numerous people died from accidental domestic electrocution. Modern houses are equipped with an ingenious protective device called a ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI). The GFCIs sense any difference in the current in the system and interrupt the electrical current in a matter of milliseconds. In this way, if a child plugs a metallic object into an outlet, the circuit interrupter will activate and stop the current and save the child from death. God planned to create our world and crown it with intelligent and free humans who could choose to reject God and sin. The consequences of sinning (like the consequence of touching a live electrical wire) result in the death of the sinner. God told Adam and Eve they would die in the moment or day that they sinned (Gen. 2:17). Yet, they did not die. On the contrary, they realized what had happened and ran away from God (Gen. 3:6, 7). It could be argued that the first pair died in a spiritual way or that they were condemned to death in the long run.
While these answers have merit, the gospel, especially as explained by Paul in Ephesians, gives a more complete answer to the question of why Adam and Eve did not die immediately for their sin. According to Paul, before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4), God built into the Creation plan a safety feature, a spiritual GFCI. When Adam and Eve fell into sin, they were supposed to die, because they touched the “bare wire” of sin. However, Adam and Eve did not die immediately, because the plan of salvation, created by God before the foundation of the world, was immediately activated. That plan was Christ, and whoever believes in Christ, whoever chooses to be found “in Christ,” is saved from the power and consequences of sin, guilt, alienation, and death.
Part III: Life Application
Brainstorm with your students about ways that they can, as a class, organize thanksgiving worship services in their personal lives, in their family life, in their communities, or in the local church. Each of these services could have different themes: thanksgiving for the plan of salvation and how it has transformed their personal lives, thanksgiving for the love of Christ as it is manifested in their personal lives and in the community, or thanksgiving for forgiveness as manifested in their personal lives and in the life of the community.
Ask your students to consider this question: How exalted are their communications? That is, how does the content of their everyday oral, written, or graphic communication reveal that their lives have been touched, and transformed, by the grace of God and by the worldview of the exalted Lord and His theology? How much do your class members feel they are affected by eternal realities in the heavenly places? How is the content and manner of their conversation like Paul’s? Ask your students to consider the ways in which they talk to family, friends, work colleagues, and people in public spaces. Challenge them to revise the way they write emails or messages on various social media platforms. Also, challenge them to revise the content of their personal conversations with family, friends, and colleagues to reflect Christ and to become more Christ-centered.
In Ephesians 1:5, Paul writes that God “predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (NASB). Many Christians take this text to mean that the apostle teaches the concept of predestination in the sense that God selects us to be saved and that we cannot do anything to resist His will or change His decision in this matter. How would your students explain this text to the following groups of people: (1) their Christian friends who believe in the concept of predestination and (2) their non-Christian friends or neighbors?