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Ephesians: God Saves People

by Chris Alexion, Copyright February 10, 2008, all rights reserved. 423 views

What is St. Paul getting at in his letter to the Ephesians? What are the main ideas he wants to get across? The book can be complex, talking about theological concepts like predestination and salvation and ranging to practical advice for those dealing with the slavery that Roman law still permitted. At the same time, Ephesians offers us a richness of familiar and encouraging passages about God's grace, Christian unity, and spiritual warfare.

In the next few posts I'd like to take a brief look at Ephesians–a sort of bird's eye view that will follow Paul's flow of thought and mark his main points. I suggest the following three-part outline of Paul's focus: First, God saves people (Paul covers this from the first verse roughly to 2:10). Second, God saves His church (Paul takes this line from 2:11 to 3:20). Third, God saves cultures (we can see this from 4:1 through 6:9, followed by Paul's closing thoughts).

Paul's first point, if you will, explores how God saves everyday sinners like you and me. Gratitude overwhelms his whole discussion; the first chapter is a long prayer filled with run-on sentences about how glad Paul is for the salvation of the Ephesians. Yet even Paul's rambling introduction carries massive theological weight.

He first covers how salvation is planned (1:1-1:6). In theological terms, we would call this the doctrine of predestination or the sovereignty of God. God, says Paul, "chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will." The result is "the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted" in Christ.

Some shy away from the strong emphasis on God's sovereignty; they look for something in us–such as our choice of Christ–for the reason that God chose us for salvation. God, in other words, being the great psychic that He is, looked into His crystal ball, saw who would eventually chose Jesus anyway, and then predestined them to salvation. Paul's reasoning is much different. God, according to Paul, made this decision "according to the good pleasure of his will" (v. 3). Verse 11 will later say that we are "predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will." God needs no reference point outside Himself; He makes His choices based solely on His own will, so that no one will boast, but rather give praise to "the glory of His grace" (v. 6).

Paul continues, explaining how salvation takes place (1:7-2:10). Unpacking the rich theology of this passage could take a whole book, but if we hit only the major highlights, we see two key themes: redemption through Christ's blood, and the overpowering grace of God. "In Him," Paul goes on, "we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence…" (1:7-8). Paul can never separate the good news of the Gospel from the bad news of sin; the bad news is the necessary prerequisite. We are saved from something, and Paul doesn't shy away from this.

But not only are we saved from something; we are saved by something. Salvation isn't just a free pass or a Monopoly pardon card. Salvation cost the blood of God the Son. Paul here uses the term blood as a summary of what we now call the doctrine of Christ's "substitutionary atonement." That is, Christ stood in my place, bearing my sin legally before God, and took upon himself the punishment that a just God required. In the article linked above, I've tried to collect the biblical passages that support and develop this idea further.

Second, Paul wants us to focus on God's amazing grace. The word grace itself is packed with meaning; it tells us that even though we're at fault, God shows us undeserved favor because of the work of His Son. Have you ever heard some "positive" or "prosperity" preacher on TV say that we should just focus on grace and not worry about sin? The concept makes no sense; grace and sin go hand in hand. And Paul certainly has no desire to BS us when it comes to the severity of man's condition apart from God: "And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked…and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others [no sense of self-righteous superiority here]. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)… (2:1-5).

Paul then gets to some famous verses: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast" (2:8-9). Paul leaves no room for bragging rights; not only are we saved "by grace through faith," but even this faith is "not of [our]selves." It's "the gift of God."

There's a powerful line about this in the recent movie Amazing Grace. Named after John Newton's famous hymn, the film explores the work of Englishman William Wilberforce to abolish the slave trade. In the movie, Albert Finney plays Newton, who was Wilberforce's mentor. Newton had captained a slave ship; he'd committed unspeakable acts of barbarity against fellow members of the human race. But grace was powerful, and Newton was able to say, "I know two things: I am a great sinner, and Christ is a great Savior."

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