God’S Glorious Purpose
GOD’S GLORIOUS PURPOSE
EPHESIANS 1:3-10
“Before the foundation of the world,” God decided to send Jesus into the world to die for you. Amazing!
Think of Ephesians as a word of wisdom to the mature believer (see 4:12-14; 1 Corinthians 2:6-7) couched in the form of a prayer. The entire first half of the letter (1:3–3:21) and much of the apostle’s plea for worthy conduct in the second half is presented in the language of prayer. Within a framework of prayer (see 1:3,16; 3:14,21; 5:20; 6:18,23f.), Christ’s achievement on behalf of the church is confessed before God and humanity. When Ephesians is recognized as a word of wisdom in the form of prayer, its language and style are intelligible. The pastoral concern, the formal liturgical style and the involved sequence of thoughts of Ephesians find their exact parallel in other letters where Paul gives himself to prayer of adoration, confession and supplication (eg Romans 8:31-39; 11:33-36; 16:25-27; Philippians 1:6-11).
These qualities of pastoral concern, formal liturgical style and involved sequence of thoughts are evident throughout 1:3-14, which Paul wrote as a single sentence of carefully balanced clauses. This expanded blessing is a solemn review of the redemption of the triune God. It is possible to read this paragraph as a hymn in three stanzas of uneven length (1:3-6, 1:7-12 and 1:13-14), with each stanza concluding with a praise to God’s glorious grace. The theme of this hymn is God’s eternal purpose in history (1:9). The horizontal or historical phase is summarized in 1:3-8 (see also 3:4-6); the vertical or ultimate phase of God’s plan is presented in 1:9f.; the resulting phase, the creation of a fellowship of love, is expressed in 1:11-14 (see also 3:9-11).
When Paul thinks about what God has done for the church, he breaks out in joyful praise. Before God spoke the creative word that brought the world into being, he chose us to be a holy and blameless people (1:3f.). He determined that we should be his sons and that the church should be like a family (1:5). He made provision for the removal of our guilt and the enrichment of our lives through abundant grace (1:7f.). That provision is explained historically by Paul: God sent Jesus Christ into the world to overcome the distance between God and the world through Christ’s death on the cross (1:7). What Christ did is also explained cosmically: the ultimate secret of God’s will is that his Son should be the head of all things, both the earthly and the heavenly (1:9f.). Christ’s work is seen in relationship to God’s total purpose for the universe because Christ reintegrates all elements of the universe to God (1:10). There are many ways to interpret Paul’s statement that all things in heaven and on earth are united in Christ, but the immediate context indicates that what is primarily in view is that Christ has overcome the alienation between people and God.