Introduction: While the Epistle to the Ephesians is the master key to the rest of the Pauline epistles, this week’s study is the master key that unlocks the entire study on the Epistle to the Ephesians, as follows:
Sunday’s section of the Standard Edition Bible study guide summarizes Paul’s breathtaking view of God’s eternal and historical plan of Creation and Redemption.
Monday’s section summarizes Ephesians 2, which graphically depicts humanity’s grim state of sin and death, a state that is without promises, without hope, without Christ, and without God in the world. But Paul—and the Bible in general—does not end with this grim depiction. Rather, he details the foundational elements of the gospel, the mystery of God, which brings hope to humanity: in and with Christ, God resurrects us and exalts us to His sanctuary in the heavenly places. Moreover, in and with Christ, we become God’s new temple on earth. This transformation is made by grace, and grace is the foundation of the Christian faith, life, and mission.
Chapter 3, reviewed in the section for Tuesday, highlights God’s mystery of the creation of the church.
Wednesday’s section (reprising Ephesians 4) explains how God’s twin purposes are achieved when God’s children from the entire world are united in true piety, in the use of their spiritual gifts, and in mission. That is why the unity of the church is not optional for the existence of the church.
As the section for Thursday (reviewing Ephesians 5) emphasizes, unity cannot be achieved without abandoning our past exaltation of “I.” Unity is realized only when we embrace our new identity and walk in Christ. This profound transformation in Christ will also affect all aspects of our human life, including our families (husbands, wives, and children), society (people groups and social classes), and our personal individual lives.
Friday’s section (Ephesians 6) calls us to see the church as a dynamic, and united, army, well equipped for its battle mission of proclaiming the Lord’s gospel of peace. It is only this peace of, and in, Christ that will assure us of success and of life. Victory is assured in Christ. Our success depends only on whether we will stand our ground of really believing in Christ’s victory and acting on it.
Lesson Themes: This week’s study is a synthesis of the entire Epistle to the Ephesians, an attempt to highlight and weave together all its major themes.
Part II: Commentary
The Mystery of the Gospel
At the very heart of Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians pulsates his fascination with the gospel as a mystery now uncoded. He starts his epistle by celebrating that God “made known to us the mystery of His will” (Eph 1:9, NASB), and this mystery is about “an inheritance” (Eph. 1:11). This mystery is not about our desperate and dark state (Eph. 2:1–4) or about the alienation, divisions, and enmity that sin brought to us as individuals, as families, and as human society (Eph. 2:11, 12). The reason for these divisions and enmities is no mystery to us at all in our sinful condition. Nor is our inability to solve the problem of sin and death a mystery (Eph. 2:9, John 1:13). As history proves time and again, we are all painfully aware that no human devising can pull us out of the gravitational field of the black hole of sin. Rather, the mystery Paul talks about is the unfathomable miracle of God’s love for us! We thought God did not love us. We thought He forgot about us. We thought He preferred the Jews and that the Gentiles were proscribed. We thought that the case of the Jews was forever lost when they rejected Jesus as the Messiah.
It turns out we were wrong about God in all these aspects. When God opened His mysteries before Paul, Paul was shocked. For this reason, although the entire epistle is describing this mystery from different perspectives, the apostle returns, in the center of the epistle, to calling it “the mystery” (Eph. 3:3, 9) and “the mystery of Christ” (Eph. 3:4), and, at the end of his letter, “the mystery of the gospel” (Eph. 6:19, NASB). This mystery is all the more valuable, Paul explains, when we realize that it was hidden from the people in the past centuries and millennia, and God chose Paul’s generation to live in that unique historical time when that mystery of mysteries was fully revealed for all to see (Eph. 3:9; Rom. 16:25; 1 Cor. 2:7; Col. 1:26, 27; Col. 2:2). What a privilege, what glory!
We can see Paul’s exulting over this great discovery. His entire life is affected, nay, transformed, by the gospel truth. As in Jesus’ parable of the found treasure (Matt. 13:44), Paul “sold” all he had to obtain and possess this secret treasure (Phil. 3:4–8). His face conveyed to others that he knew something that others did not. However, unlike the treasure hunter (Matt. 13:44) or the unfaithful servant (Matt. 25:18), Paul did not hide his mystery treasure in the ground. On the contrary, when God revealed His mystery to him, Paul embarked on a worldwide journey to tell everyone about this mystery. This mystery is about the fact that God is love. He created us out of love, and He died in our place because He is love. He resurrected us to dwell with Him in the Spirit in His holy habitation because He is love. He fought for us because He is love. And He will return for us because He is love. That mystery, in Paul’s own words, “is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27, NASB).
The End of the Great Controversy
One day, the history of sin will end, but God’s mystery will not be exhausted. Describing the end of the great controversy, Ellen G. White’s language and ethos fully harmonizes and reverberates with Paul’s elevated spirit in his Epistle to the Ephesians:
All the treasures of the universe will be open to the study of God’s redeemed. Unfettered by mortality, they wing their tireless flight to worlds afar—worlds that thrilled with sorrow at the spectacle of human woe and rang with songs of gladness at the tidings of a ransomed soul. With unutterable delight the children of earth enter into the joy and the wisdom of unfallen beings. They share the treasures of knowledge and understanding gained through ages upon ages in contemplation of God’s handiwork. With undimmed vision they gaze upon the glory of creation—suns and stars and systems, all in their appointed order circling the throne of Deity. Upon all things, from the least to the greatest, the Creator’s name is written, and in all are the riches of His power displayed.
And the years of eternity, as they roll, will bring richer and still more glorious revelations of God and of Christ. As knowledge is progressive, so will love, reverence, and happiness increase. The more men learn of God, the greater will be their admiration of His character. As Jesus opens before them the riches of redemption and the amazing achievements in the great controversy with Satan, the hearts of the ransomed thrill with more fervent devotion, and with more rapturous joy they sweep the harps of gold; and ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of voices unite to swell the mighty chorus of praise.
And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.” Revelation 5:13.
The great controversy is ended. Sin and sinners are no more. The entire universe is clean. One pulse of harmony and gladness beats through the vast creation. From Him who created all, flow life and light and gladness, throughout the realms of illimitable space. From the minutest atom to the greatest world, all things, animate and inanimate, in their unshadowed beauty and perfect joy, declare that God is love.—The Great Controversy, pp. 677, 678.
Part III: Life Application
This is a summarizing study. Encourage your students to make their own summary of Ephesians and share it with the Sabbath School class.
What are the three principal themes running through Paul’s letter to the Ephesians? How do these themes relate to each other? Ask your students to identify which theme they regard as the main one and which themes they consider as subordinate.
Invite your students to imagine that they are invited to plant a new church in an unevangelized area. How might Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians help them prepare for such a daring project?
Ask your students to identify themes in Ephesians that would constitute an evangelistic message for this new area. In what order would your students deliver these themes? Also, ask your students to identify the principles upon which they could help establish a vibrant church, as close as possible to the model the apostle Paul envisioned and shared in his epistle.
The principles your students suggest should be useful in growing a church full of the joy of salvation. What additional principles can your students identify that would help unite new members in Christ and unite them together in the life and mission of the church? What principles would inspire the church to be driven by the power of the Holy Spirit through spiritual gifts?
Direct class members to identify principles from Ephesians that we studied this quarter that would help church members to attain to a lifestyle in accordance with the gospel, principles that would grow happy families and build healthy relationships between various groups.
Adjust My Preferences
Welcome! Please set your reading preferences below.
You can access this panel later by clicking the
preference icon
in the top right of the page.
Key Text: Ephesians 2:8–10
Study Focus: Ephesians 1–6.
Introduction: While the Epistle to the Ephesians is the master key to the rest of the Pauline epistles, this week’s study is the master key that unlocks the entire study on the Epistle to the Ephesians, as follows:
Sunday’s section of the Standard Edition Bible study guide summarizes Paul’s breathtaking view of God’s eternal and historical plan of Creation and Redemption.
Monday’s section summarizes Ephesians 2, which graphically depicts humanity’s grim state of sin and death, a state that is without promises, without hope, without Christ, and without God in the world. But Paul—and the Bible in general—does not end with this grim depiction. Rather, he details the foundational elements of the gospel, the mystery of God, which brings hope to humanity: in and with Christ, God resurrects us and exalts us to His sanctuary in the heavenly places. Moreover, in and with Christ, we become God’s new temple on earth. This transformation is made by grace, and grace is the foundation of the Christian faith, life, and mission.
Chapter 3, reviewed in the section for Tuesday, highlights God’s mystery of the creation of the church.
Wednesday’s section (reprising Ephesians 4) explains how God’s twin purposes are achieved when God’s children from the entire world are united in true piety, in the use of their spiritual gifts, and in mission. That is why the unity of the church is not optional for the existence of the church.
As the section for Thursday (reviewing Ephesians 5) emphasizes, unity cannot be achieved without abandoning our past exaltation of “I.” Unity is realized only when we embrace our new identity and walk in Christ. This profound transformation in Christ will also affect all aspects of our human life, including our families (husbands, wives, and children), society (people groups and social classes), and our personal individual lives.
Friday’s section (Ephesians 6) calls us to see the church as a dynamic, and united, army, well equipped for its battle mission of proclaiming the Lord’s gospel of peace. It is only this peace of, and in, Christ that will assure us of success and of life. Victory is assured in Christ. Our success depends only on whether we will stand our ground of really believing in Christ’s victory and acting on it.
Lesson Themes: This week’s study is a synthesis of the entire Epistle to the Ephesians, an attempt to highlight and weave together all its major themes.
Part II: Commentary
The Mystery of the Gospel
At the very heart of Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians pulsates his fascination with the gospel as a mystery now uncoded. He starts his epistle by celebrating that God “made known to us the mystery of His will” (Eph 1:9, NASB), and this mystery is about “an inheritance” (Eph. 1:11). This mystery is not about our desperate and dark state (Eph. 2:1–4) or about the alienation, divisions, and enmity that sin brought to us as individuals, as families, and as human society (Eph. 2:11, 12). The reason for these divisions and enmities is no mystery to us at all in our sinful condition. Nor is our inability to solve the problem of sin and death a mystery (Eph. 2:9, John 1:13). As history proves time and again, we are all painfully aware that no human devising can pull us out of the gravitational field of the black hole of sin. Rather, the mystery Paul talks about is the unfathomable miracle of God’s love for us! We thought God did not love us. We thought He forgot about us. We thought He preferred the Jews and that the Gentiles were proscribed. We thought that the case of the Jews was forever lost when they rejected Jesus as the Messiah.
It turns out we were wrong about God in all these aspects. When God opened His mysteries before Paul, Paul was shocked. For this reason, although the entire epistle is describing this mystery from different perspectives, the apostle returns, in the center of the epistle, to calling it “the mystery” (Eph. 3:3, 9) and “the mystery of Christ” (Eph. 3:4), and, at the end of his letter, “the mystery of the gospel” (Eph. 6:19, NASB). This mystery is all the more valuable, Paul explains, when we realize that it was hidden from the people in the past centuries and millennia, and God chose Paul’s generation to live in that unique historical time when that mystery of mysteries was fully revealed for all to see (Eph. 3:9; Rom. 16:25; 1 Cor. 2:7; Col. 1:26, 27; Col. 2:2). What a privilege, what glory!
We can see Paul’s exulting over this great discovery. His entire life is affected, nay, transformed, by the gospel truth. As in Jesus’ parable of the found treasure (Matt. 13:44), Paul “sold” all he had to obtain and possess this secret treasure (Phil. 3:4–8). His face conveyed to others that he knew something that others did not. However, unlike the treasure hunter (Matt. 13:44) or the unfaithful servant (Matt. 25:18), Paul did not hide his mystery treasure in the ground. On the contrary, when God revealed His mystery to him, Paul embarked on a worldwide journey to tell everyone about this mystery. This mystery is about the fact that God is love. He created us out of love, and He died in our place because He is love. He resurrected us to dwell with Him in the Spirit in His holy habitation because He is love. He fought for us because He is love. And He will return for us because He is love. That mystery, in Paul’s own words, “is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27, NASB).
The End of the Great Controversy
One day, the history of sin will end, but God’s mystery will not be exhausted. Describing the end of the great controversy, Ellen G. White’s language and ethos fully harmonizes and reverberates with Paul’s elevated spirit in his Epistle to the Ephesians:
All the treasures of the universe will be open to the study of God’s redeemed. Unfettered by mortality, they wing their tireless flight to worlds afar—worlds that thrilled with sorrow at the spectacle of human woe and rang with songs of gladness at the tidings of a ransomed soul. With unutterable delight the children of earth enter into the joy and the wisdom of unfallen beings. They share the treasures of knowledge and understanding gained through ages upon ages in contemplation of God’s handiwork. With undimmed vision they gaze upon the glory of creation—suns and stars and systems, all in their appointed order circling the throne of Deity. Upon all things, from the least to the greatest, the Creator’s name is written, and in all are the riches of His power displayed.
And the years of eternity, as they roll, will bring richer and still more glorious revelations of God and of Christ. As knowledge is progressive, so will love, reverence, and happiness increase. The more men learn of God, the greater will be their admiration of His character. As Jesus opens before them the riches of redemption and the amazing achievements in the great controversy with Satan, the hearts of the ransomed thrill with more fervent devotion, and with more rapturous joy they sweep the harps of gold; and ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of voices unite to swell the mighty chorus of praise.
And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.” Revelation 5:13.
The great controversy is ended. Sin and sinners are no more. The entire universe is clean. One pulse of harmony and gladness beats through the vast creation. From Him who created all, flow life and light and gladness, throughout the realms of illimitable space. From the minutest atom to the greatest world, all things, animate and inanimate, in their unshadowed beauty and perfect joy, declare that God is love.—The Great Controversy, pp. 677, 678.
Part III: Life Application
This is a summarizing study. Encourage your students to make their own summary of Ephesians and share it with the Sabbath School class.
What are the three principal themes running through Paul’s letter to the Ephesians? How do these themes relate to each other? Ask your students to identify which theme they regard as the main one and which themes they consider as subordinate.
Invite your students to imagine that they are invited to plant a new church in an unevangelized area. How might Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians help them prepare for such a daring project?
Ask your students to identify themes in Ephesians that would constitute an evangelistic message for this new area. In what order would your students deliver these themes? Also, ask your students to identify the principles upon which they could help establish a vibrant church, as close as possible to the model the apostle Paul envisioned and shared in his epistle.
The principles your students suggest should be useful in growing a church full of the joy of salvation. What additional principles can your students identify that would help unite new members in Christ and unite them together in the life and mission of the church? What principles would inspire the church to be driven by the power of the Holy Spirit through spiritual gifts?