Episode 130 - Predestined for Blessings - The Truth Will Set You Free Part 1

We begin our series, The Truth Will Set You Free, a look Paul's epistle to the Ephesians, with this first episode, "Predestined for Blessings." The Book of Ephesians is filled with amazing truths, doctrine, and theology. In fact, the truths found in this book are freeing - hence the name, The Truth Will Set You Free. Join us in this first episode as we get some history and background of Ephesians, as well as looking at Paul's introduction to the epistle. 

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Transcript

Episode 130 – Predestined to Blessing

          Welcome back! We just finished 10 weeks of studying some transforming Truths. Besides the Gospel, two of the most transforming truths in all of Scripture, are the truths that God is Gracious and God is Sovereign. Paul thoroughly fleshes out both of these truths, along with other essential doctrine and theology in the book of Ephesians. The contents of the book of Ephesians is not only transforming, it's freeing. That is why we have named this series, The Truth Shall Set You Free.

          Alistair Begg tells a great story about Scottish Pastor John McCay, who lived in the late 1800s to early 1900s. When John McCay was just 14 years old, Ephesians got a hold of him while he was out walking one day and reading it. He said after he finished, he dropped to his knees and made a passionate proclamation to Jesus right there that he would serve Him for the rest of his life. McCay would often tell people that the book of Ephesians was what made Jesus Christ become the center of his life. He said he saw things differently, did things differently, thought things differently, due to the truths he discovered in the book of Ephesians. He said he felt as if he had been made alive. He was 14! He went on to become a pastor and president of the Princeton Theological Seminary. He was often invited to give guest lectures. Whenever he gave one of those guest lectures, he always chooses to use something from Ephesians as his subject matter.

          We are going to spend the next 12 weeks delving into Ephesians. This week, we are going to give some background and an introduction to the book and look at the first 14 verses. Paul wrote the book of Ephesians while imprisoned in Rome in 62 A.D. In fact, he wrote four letters during that imprisonment - Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. Prisons in Rome during Paul’s time were a lot different than prisons today. If you were in prison for a crime or for politics that opposed the Roman government, it was rarely a long-term punishment. You were only in there until your trial came up or they executed you. So the length of imprisonment basically depended upon how fast your trial came up. – which could take up a couple of years. However, once you had your trial, if you were found innocent, you were let go, and if you were found guilty, you were swiftly killed. 

There was another kind of prison, though, that could be long term, and that was debtor’s prison. Debtors could be imprisoned until their friends or family paid their debt. You may recall that debtors’ prison was the backdrop Jesus used for his parable of the ungrateful servant in Matthew 18. People in the first century were well acquainted with how it worked.

The conditions with which you were held was linked to your status. Non-Roman citizens, even if they or their family were rich and high up on the social ladder, were often treated harshly. In contrast, Roman citizens were often given house arrest which was much more comfortable for the prisoner. He would be chained to a guard, but he could have visitors who could bring him things and see to his needs. You may recall that in Acts 22, the guards treated Paul pretty roughly and then were afraid when they realized he was a Roman citizen. Even execution was different depending on your citizenship. Non-Roman citizens were brutally killed in ways like crucifixion, getting drug to death by horses, getting gorged to death by bulls, torn apart by lions, and any other sadistic means the emperor could come up with. Roman citizens, though, were not executed in such horrific manners. They were usually decapitated. This is why Peter and some of the other disciples were crucified, and Paul was decapitated. It’s not that they liked Paul better – not even a little. It was just their law.

It definitely wasn’t because they liked Paul. But his citizenship definitely helped him get treated slightly better than a non-citizen prisoner. They did chain him up in a common holding cell in Philippi as we see in Acts 16. But he was also held in somewhat better conditions in the praetorium at Caesarea as we see in Acts 23. He was held on house arrest in relative comfort in Rome as we see in Acts 28. Something else that was different for citizens and non-citizens was that if you were not a Roman citizen, you had to somehow get your own food and clothes while you were in prison. Seems crazy that they expected you to do that, but prisoners had to rely on friends and family to bring them what they needed. You can imagine if a prisoner didn’t have any family and friends, things probably did not go well for them. In contrast, prisoners who were Roman citizens were given a daily allowance of food. Even though Paul qualified for this, he refused to rely on Rome for food and clothes. Instead, he depended on friends and fellow believers to supply his needs. It was during Paul’s prison stint in Rome – where he was under house arrest, guarded around the clock by soldiers of the elite Praetorian Guard, that he wrote this letter to the Ephesians. This was not Paul’s last imprisonment though. That came a couple of years later, around 64 A.D., again in Rome. Paul was kept in an underground cell before he was executed by Nero by decapitation.

Before Paul wrote this letter to the Ephesians in 62 A.D., he had previously visited Ephesus, promising to return for another visit. We see the record of his first visit in Acts 18:18 – 21. And he did return. In fact, he ended up staying three and a half years. We often call all of Paul’s letters, epistles; but there is a difference. All epistles are letters, but not all letters are epistles. An epistle is a formal letter, usually to a person or persons the writer does not know well. A letter is more personal and less formal. The recipient is usually well known to the writer. Paul wrote both letters and epistles, but he meant for them all to be read in public.  And both are meant to be read in one sitting. When any of the letters and epistles in the NT were read out loud, they were read in their entirety. Makes sense. When we get a letter, we don’t just read one paragraph and then put it aside for another time. We read the whole letter. So we strongly recommend that you take the time to read the entire book of Ephesians in once sitting. You are actually getting off pretty easy with Ephesians - it’s only 6 chapters, compared to Romans or 1 Corinthians, which are both 16 chapters.

 Ephesians is an epistle – it’s a formal, general letter. In fact, it may not have been meant just for the church in Ephesus alone but meant as a type of devotional to be used by all of the churches in Asia – of which Ephesus was the capital. It was located in modern day Turkey. In fact, there are some relics and monuments still standing and good condition. As the capital of Asia, it was once considered the most important of all the Greek cities and the most important trading center in the Mediterranean region. Throughout history, Ephesus survived multiple attacks and changed hands many times between conquerors. It was the hub of Greek culture. Greeks loved their philosophy and new ideas. They were all about academia and learning. The people were willing to listen to just about anything, if it meant they could learn something new. Paul used this to his advantage a couple of times to preach the Gospel to Greek gentiles as we see in Acts 17. Tradition says that Mary, Jesus’ mother, lived in Ephesus with the Apostle John when she died. Her supposed tomb is marked in Turkey where Ephesus once stood. And in case you are wondering what happened to Ephesus, In the sixth and seventh centuries A.D., a massive earthquake left Ephesus a shell of the city it used to be, and Arab invasions forced most of the population of Ephesus to flee and start a new settlement.

Unlike some of Paul’s letters, Ephesians sounds as if Paul didn’t know his readers personally. His writing is much more generalized than, for example, Philippians, where it is evident that Paul knows his readers very well and has a deep affection for them. There are two major themes in the letter to the Ephesians:  God calls His people and God saves His people. We will see as we go through Ephesians, that in this region the people were terrified of what Paul calls, the “powers of this dark world.” One of Paul’s purposes in writing this letter is to alleviate these fears. To help the people of Ephesus crush the fear factor of evil forces, Paul emphasizes that Jesus is Lord over everything– even the “powers of this dark world.” He shows them that God is bringing all things into subjection through Jesus and through His people. The heart of the whole letter can be summed up in Eph 2:8 – 9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Paul writes this verse to believers who are both Jews and Gentile. And that’s important because there was a lot of friction between Jewish believers and Gentile believers. The Jewish believers looked down on the Gentile believers and wanted them to first convert to Judaism before converting to Christianity (meaning mostly that they wanted them to keep OT rituals and be circumcised.)

But Paul shows them that there is no reason for conflict, because neither group has a reason to have bragging rights. For those Jews that were saved, Paul tells them that salvation didn’t come by anything they had done, such as adhering to Old Testament rituals and getting circumcised. For the Gentiles, Paul tells them that their salvation was not in jeopardy because of anything they hadn’t done, like adhering to Old Testament rituals and getting circumcised. Paul lays out the case that Jesus has brought all of God’s people together, both the Jew and the Gentile, not because of who they are, but because of who God is. God brings them together for His glory and His triumph, not their own.

One more thing we want to point out about Ephesians before we dig in. Ephesians is somewhat of a chiastic structure. A Chiasm is a pattern in literature like A,B,C,C,B,A. Ephesians’ chiasm is pretty simple. It’s A,B,B,A. It begins and ends with the grace and peace of Christ. Besides being chiastic, the book of Ephesians is divided into two parts - indicatives and imperatives. In case you aren’t familiar with those terms, indicatives are things God has done for us, things He has given us. Imperatives are things we are told to do in light of those indicatives. Paul spends the first 3 chapters showing us the indicatives, and the last 3 chapters giving us the imperatives.

Okay, so let’s dig in. Ephesians 1: 1 – 14 are an introduction to the letter. And those are the verses we are going to look at today. Verse 1 – 2 start out with a greeting from Paul. “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul starts off with a greeting that is similar to several of his other epistles. For example, Paul begins his epistle to the Galatians with, “Paul, an apostle – not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father.” Paul often identifies himself as an Apostle. We did a whole episode on the Apostles – it was episode 115 – A Thrill of Hope, the Weary World Rejoices, so we won’t go into great detail. But suffice it to say that there was a difference between apostles and disciples. If you listened to that episode, you may remember us saying that all Apostles were disciples, but not all disciples were Apostles. 

So why does Paul take the time to often identify himself as an apostle? Peter and John don’t. Could be for a couple of reasons. For one, an Apostle is one called specifically by Jesus. There’s no doubt Paul was very humbled and honored to have been called by Jesus Himself, especially considering what he was like when he was called. He wants to make it clear that God called him. He had nothing to do with his conversion and calling. And that goes along with another reason why Paul calls himself an Apostle often, and John or Peter didn’t, but instead, usually just called themselves disciples. John and Peter were known to have traveled with Jesus during his 3 year earthly ministry. There was never any question that they were followers and messengers called by Jesus Himself. Nobody questioned that. 

But the only ones who knew that Paul was called by Jesus was himself, Ananias, and presumably the 2 guys who were with Paul on the road to Damascus. To the vast majority of the people in the areas he preached in, he was a pharisee turned Jesus follower. Paul is authenticating himself as an Apostle to his listeners and readers and again to show that all the glory goes to God, not himself. Calvin says this, “(Paul) adds, by the will of God; for "no man ought to take this honor unto himself, but every man ought to wait for the calling of God, which alone makes lawful ministers. He thus meets the jeers of wicked men by holding out the authority of God, and removes every occasion of inconsiderate strife.”

Paul offers his readers grace and peace from God the Father and Jesus Christ. This signals that what Paul is about to say is from God. His words are God’s words. And one more thing that Paul tells us in the first 2 verses. He calls those all who are faithful in Jesus saints. Now, most of us probably know this, but the definition of a saint is a true believer in Jesus. It’s not someone voted on and canonized by the church. Let’s just take a minute on this, because as we say in the intro to this podcast, we want to take the trash out of false teaching and replace it with Biblical Truth. The Catholic church’s requirements for sainthood, which the Pope apparently just changed, are (in their own words) that the person showed Christian virtues, at least to an ordinary extent, before and after offering their life to God. They must have a "reputation for holiness" at least after their death. And they must have performed a miracle. Okay, so the first requirement – the person showed Christian virtues, at least to an ordinary extent, before and after offering their life to God. Scripture agrees that a saint is someone who shows Christian virtues (meaning fruit) after coming to Jesus – that would be all faithful believers – who Paul just said were saints.

But showing fruit before salvation? The Bible blows that mistruth out of the water. We are dead in our sin, enemies of God, and wicked before salvation. We are certainly not showing any Christian virtues. How about the next requirement, “a reputation for holiness,” at least after their death?  This is not only completely subjective, it doesn’t make much sense. Who is deciding what a reputation of holiness means? And even if it is agreed that they are known as a person who loved Jesus, that should be evident while a person is alive!  In fact, its commanded of us – “You are the light of the world. don’t hide your light under a basket…”Add another Scripture 

And the last requirement that they had to perform a miracle. Jesus gave all his Apostles authority to perform miracles. So we can see why the Apostles have all been made saints by the Catholic church given the criteria – they do fulfill all the requirements. But as far as performing miracles, they would be the first to say – and did say – that the miracles they did were from God, not from them. They were given the ability to perform miracles to start the initial spread of the gospel and the early church. Luke 9:1 -2 says, “And He called the twelve together, and gave them power and authority over all the demons and to heal diseases. And He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to perform healing.” 

And then a chapter later in Luke 10, it says, “After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go… Heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.” So the miracles in the NT were specifically for the initial spread of the Gospel and were given only by the authority and through the power of Jesus. It was never the Apostles and the other 72 doing the miracles on their own, it was God. So we know that was a little side tracking, but we thought it was important to clear up a false teaching. To wrap it up – all true believers are saints. Period.

Moving onto Verses 3 – 4, they say, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.” Paul says in one sentence that both God the Father is blessed and that we are blessed. We will get to our being blessed in a minute, but how is God blessed? To put it very simply, God is blessed by our praise of Him and our gratitude to Him. We don’t often think about this. But we can bless our Almighty, Holy, Sovereign God. Does He need our blessings? Of course not, but He is glorified through them. Paul is going to help us in this by laying out 6 chapters worth of reasons that we have to praise and be grateful to God. 

He begins giving those reasons in verse 3. For those who have Jesus as their Lord and Savior, God has blessed us by giving us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. This tells us that in Jesus, Christians have all that they need – there is no spiritual blessing that God has withheld from us. Think about that. Because of Jesus, we don’t even have to have any doubts about if we are going to heaven or not, we have been saved. We don’t have to worry about if God is disappointed in us, we have been forgiven of all of our sins. We don’t have to worry that we aren’t good enough to merit God’s grace. We aren’t, but not being meriting it is the very definition of grace. We don’t have to worry that we will somehow lose our salvation, we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit for eternity. We are going to flesh these things out in more detail as we move on in the book, but this is an amazing truth that Paul starts the letter off with - there is nothing we lack spiritually if we belong to Jesus. John McCay, the Scottish pastor who we talked about earlier, called verses 3 & 4 “the great symphony of salvation.”

And then Paul tells us why we can be confident that we have everything we need spiritually – because God chose us to be His. He chose us before He even created the world. Just chew on this – before God began creating the earth – you were on His mind. You are there in Genesis chapter 1, between verses 2 - 3. If we want to paraphrase those verses, we could say, The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. God the Father chose all of the people He would set apart as His, Jesus agreed to redeem them by making atonement for their sins, and the Holy Spirit agreed to regenerate their hearts, seal them for eternity, and dwell in them to sanctify them. And then God said, Let there be light, and there was light.

          It is a fact that you can’t fully understand the New Testament without understanding the Old Testament, especially Genesis. It is also a fact that to really understand and know God, you need the foundation the Old Testament including Genesis. Here’s a third reason to study Genesis – you are in there! As John Calvin says, “This makes it evident that their salvation was accomplished, not by any accidental or unlooked-for occurrence, but by the eternal and unchangeable decree of God.” And Paul goes on telling us God didn’t just choose to save us before He created the world, but He chose us to be holy and blameless before Him. God knew all humans, except Adam and Eve, would be born dead in their sins and enemies of His. And even though Adam and Eve did not have an inborn sin nature, He knew they would sin and thereby separate themselves from Him. So God choosing us before the foundation of the world means that He not only set us aside as His, but because we are all born enemies of God, it means that He had already planned on saving us from His own wrath. He would apply the saving work of Jesus to us so it would be Jesus’ perfect record of obedience He would take into account when He looked at us, and we could be reconciled to Him. 

And why did He do this? Verse 5 gives us the answer, “In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will.” There is a ton to unpack in this one verse. And we are going to delve in deeply when we get to chapter 2. But for this intro, we will just give an overview. Why did God choose us, set us aside as His, and already have the plan of our salvation, and sealing work of the Holy Spirit in place some 10,000 years before we were born? Paul gives the answer in Romans 9:11 – 13, where he is speaking about Jacob and Esau from the book of Genesis. He says, “though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls.”

God chose His people long before they could do anything to earn that love or love Him back because He wanted to. Although a mystery to us, it was part of God’s plan.  And verse 5 in chapter 1 of Ephesians shows that same truth, “He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.” The NLT interprets it a littler clearer. It says, “God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.” Like we said, we are going to delve into this deeper in chapter 2, but just think about that for a minute. God chose you because it gave Him pleasure to choose you. And it didn’t just give him a little pleasure, it gave Him great pleasure! 

And verse 6 continues, “to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.” The New Living Translation gives a better interpretation of this verse, too. It says, “So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son.” We are to glorify God, to bless God (like we saw earlier) by praising Him and being grateful for His goodness to us and to all who belong to Jesus. 

In verses 7 – 9, Paul then details those spiritual blessings that he mentioned earlier. Verses 7 – 9 say, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will.” So again, we see Paul painting the picture of our gracious, generous God who lavished (love that word!) us with His grace before we were ever born. 

And Paul finishes out verse 9 and 10 reiterating why God does this. “According to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” God chooses us, Jesus saves us, and the Holy Spirit regenerates us, seals us and sanctifies us for God’s purpose, which is that from the time we are saved and for all eternity, we have the presence of God with us. We are His. And nothing and no one can take us from His Hand. We get to be with God forever and ever. We get to enjoy Him forever.

These verses sum up nicely our purpose listed in the Westminster Shorter Catechism that “man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” Let’s stop for a minute and give a brief history on what the Westminster shorter Catechism is, because no doubt we will be quoting it throughout this series, and perhaps some of you aren’t familiar with it. The Westminster Shorter Catechism consists of a summary of Christian doctrine in 107 questions and answers. It was written by the Westminster Assembly in London over 350 years ago. Here’s a quote about it from Banner of Truth, which is a Biblical ministry dedicated to teaching Reformed Truths. They say, “The Catechism has been acknowledged by many to be the most accurate and succinct summary of the Christian faith ever produced. Its simple question and answer format lends itself to easy memorization. Yet the amount of biblical truth packed into it is nothing short of astounding.”

No doubt the writers of the catechism used these verses in Ephesians as a reference for their first question – What is the chief end of man? Answer – To glorify God and enjoy Him forever. 

          Continuing on with verses 11 – 12,  “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,  so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.Again, we will delve into this deeply when we get to chapter 2, but Paul keeps hammering on this theme of God’s sovereignty, emphasizing that the reason we have an inheritance in Christ is because we have been predestined according to God’s purpose who works all things according the counsel of His will. The emphasis is on God’s purpose, not ours. God’s will, not ours. The doctrine of God’s sovereignty is not only the cause of our salvation, but it should be the catalyst for our praise. Paul wrote at least 13 New Testament epistles, and in everyone except one (Philemon), Paul expounds on the doctrine of God’s sovereignty. 

And to finish up the introduction, just in case his readers missed it in the beginning of the letter, Paul circles back and finishes with verses 13 – 14, “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.” Paul is ending his introduction reiterating what he said in verses 3 & 4. That we have all we need spiritually through Jesus, and all of those things are from God – there is nothing we contribute to it, nor is it based on our merit – because we have none!

          We know we skimmed over a lot of deep theological truth, but Paul revisits all these things throughout the book, and we will, too! So be sure to join us next week. And don’t forget our award winning book, The Bible Blueprint – A Guide to Better Understanding the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Whether you have never read the Bible or have read it several times, we think you will find it very helpful! Thanks for tuning in. Have a blessed day everyone!