Fallacy Detective > Welcome to the Fallout >

Ephesians: God Saves His Church

In the last post we looked at how God saves individual sinners. Paul next explores how God saves His church (2:11-3:20). The apostle isn't satisfied with just "How do I get to heaven when I die?" He wants his readers to understand that they're now part of something. If you want to take a literary image, we are now characters in a great play or story; if you prefer engineering metaphors, Paul is saying that we're key elements in a structure that God is building.

In fact, keep that construction image, because Paul is talking about both demolition and rebuilding. In the first place, Christ's work is to break down walls (2:11-2:22). In the timeframe of the Old Testament, the Gospel was only foreshadowed; God was hinting at what was coming, and He set up prophetic pictures or symbols of what He would do when His Son appeared. Some of these shadows, for example, involved sacrifices; the laws of Moses hinted at the one perfect sacrifice of Christ by commanding the Jewish people to offer lambs or bulls. The idea was that sin required a penalty, and the sacrifice of the animals was a picture of what Christ would eventually do for his people once and for all to gain their salvation.

Another of these important Old Testament "types" or "shadows" involved the special treatment of one tiny Middle-Eastern nation: Israel. From the day God first covenanted with Abraham, the Israelites were His chosen people. He spoke to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; He released the Jews from Egypt; he led them through the desert; He gave His laws to Moses; He even disciplined and judged his children when they rejected Him.

During this time, the rest of the nations were for the most part left out. With just a few notable exceptions, salvation resided in Israel. To be outside of God's covenant people (i.e., to be a Gentile) meant that you didn't have God's favor. "You were without Christ," Paul reminds his readers, "being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world" (2:12).

Again, all this had symbolic significance. God was visually and historically demonstrating that He was going to save a people for himself by making a covenant with them and providing atonement for their sins. The point was that when Christ came to earth, what was planted in seed form in Israel would then bloom throughout the earth. What was foreshadowed dimly in one nation would take place in every country. As the carol puts it, "Joy to the world! The Lord is come; / Let earth receive her king." Being an "Israelite" would take on a new meaning as people everywhere became "children of Abraham" by believing in Jesus.

The problem was that many of Abraham's genetic kids didn't grasp this. They'd lost the real faith of their heroic ancestor (who looked for Messiah to save the whole world) and were content to think of themselves as God's only people. Messiah, for these people, would be a patriotic, conservative, militaristic Jew who would take David's throne back from the Romans and restore a glorious kingdom to Israel.

Jesus shattered these expectations. He warned that His kingdom didn't originate from or operate like the world system. He befriended hookers (social outcasts), tax collectors (political outcasts), and even Samaritans (racial/religious outcasts). As far as the moral majority of Jesus' day was concerned, this so-called Messiah clearly didn't get the whole Jewish kingdom thing. And He had a bad testimony to boot.

What Jesus did know, however, was that His Father was gathering a people from all corners of the earth. "When the Son of Man is lifted up," He told his friends, "He will draw all men to Himself." Jesus stressed that His Gospel was for all nations. In Ephesians, Paul emphasizes that Christ's work heals the division between Jew and Gentile, making one new spiritual man out of what had previously been two antagonistic groups.

To return to the construction metaphor, Christ is building a glorious new temple, and we're the building blocks (2:21). Peter uses the same image in his first epistle; he calls us "living stones" that build up this new spiritual temple (1 Peter 2:5). We're the new priesthood, a priesthood embracing both genders and all nations. Through Christ, says Paul, "we both have access through one Spirit to the Father" (2:18).

Paul reminds his Gentile readers that "now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ….Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God…" (2:13,19).

In what we call the third chapter of Ephesians (remember, Paul didn't include the chapter divisions we now have), Paul solidifies and applies this truth, telling his readers that because all of the preceding is true, we can have access, even boldness, to the very presence of God (3:12). Paul uses his own access to the Father to pray that the Ephesians will be inwardly strengthened by God (3:16), that "Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may…know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God" (3:17-19).

What Paul is saying is that the theological truths laid down so far–the sovereignty of God, salvation by grace through faith, and the equality of all races in Christ–work themselves out in our daily experience, and he's asking God that his readers might see these truths applied fully in their own lives. And in the next section of his letter, Paul is going to explain just what this application will entail.

-----

Comments

No comments yet.