Encouragement from Ephesians in Difficult Days

The Apostle Paul had a special relationship with the Ephesian church during his three missionary journeys. We’re told in Acts 20:31 that he spent three years there, and the work that he did in this church—and the work the Holy Spirit accomplished in drawing people to Christ—became a model for all the churches. I think that one could make the argument that Paul’s letter to the Ephesians might have been his favorite to write. We should come to this letter with a sense of the profound connection that Paul felt with this congregation, writing it five or so years after he had been there. He writes out of his concern and love for the Ephesians because they had heard that he was in prison.

The Immeasurable Greatness of His Power

In Ephesians 3:1, Paul tells the Ephesians that he is a prisoner for Christ and is experiencing suffering, but he makes it clear as the chapter continues that he does not want them to become disturbed or distressed by this fact. Instead, he says that he is suffering for their glory (Eph. 3:13). It is amazing that Paul is not particularly distressed regarding his suffering and imprisonment. Rather, he views it as an opportunity to preach in a new place and to different people. We know from other parts of the New Testament that people are converted through Paul’s preaching from prison. But he knows that the Ephesians, like all of us, are inclined to view suffering as a bad thing. So, he writes that he doesn’t want them to be discouraged by what is happening to him.

Paul was miraculously converted and specially used by the Lord to carry the gospel to various places. He was one of the founders of the church, an Apostle. Wouldn’t that mean that the Lord would particularly take care of him, preserve him, and keep him from the suffering of this world? That’s a very sensible—but ultimately worldly—way of reasoning, and Paul wants to redirect the thinking of the Ephesians according to the truth. He wants them to know the reality of what God is doing so that they will not be discouraged. That’s his great point in this letter.

It’s very possible for us to feel things that aren’t necessarily true, and Paul seeks to address this reality in his letter. He says to the Ephesians that though they may feel that his suffering is a bad thing, the reality is that in his suffering, God is accomplishing His purpose and therefore glorifying Himself. Paul wants to teach the Ephesians—and us by extension—how to understand what is going on in this world, and he does so by stressing the power of God at work in Jesus Christ. We see that particularly in Ephesians 1:19, where Paul writes about “the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might.”

There’s hardly another verse in all Scripture that so piles up statements about the power of God, the immeasurable greatness of God’s power in Christ, and the great might of His working. Do we allow that truth to seize and direct us? Our God is above all the powers of this world, and He has realized that power in what He has done in Christ. That’s what Paul wants us to focus on: what God’s power is doing in Christ and what Christ is doing for us. God’s power in Christ has made Christ the ruler of all things in this present world. He will not one day be King of kings and Lord of lords; He is today King of kings and Lord of lords. He’s the ruler of all things because God has made Him alive.

One of the great New Testament teachings is that Christ is alive now because death was powerless to hold Him (see Acts 2:24). The power of God was so great that it overcame death and raised Jesus from the dead. But that power of resurrection was not limited only to Christ’s rising from the dead. Paul says in Ephesians 2:5–6 that we are raised from the dead in Him. What an amazing thing: Our regeneration took as much power from God as Christ’s resurrection. We were as dead in spirit as Christ was in body, and it was the greatness of God’s power that raised Him and renewed us. The same divine power that brought Jesus back to life from the grave has also granted us new spiritual life, which will be consummated in our own resurrection at the last day. Paul wants us to celebrate that. He wants us to know that this living Christ has been taken up into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father over every power and that we have been raised with Him.

Christ is in heaven, far above all rule, authority, power, and dominion, above every name that is named, not only in this age but in the age to come. That’s the character of our Christ. We are besieged by claims to power in this world: power in Moscow; power in Washington; various people asserting their political, financial, and intellectual power. But Paul wants the Ephesians—who lived in a financially, economically, politically, and religiously important city—to know that none of those worldly powers even begin to compare with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ.

His power is above every power, and that’s what it means for Him to be seated at the right hand of God. It’s a seating not to rest but to reign. He is in heaven actively governing this world and all its particulars, and Paul wants us to have confidence and assurance in Him. Paul clearly has in mind Psalm 110:

The Lord says to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.” (Ps. 110:1)

This is the glory of Christ. He is the Messiah who has fulfilled what the Old Testament looked forward to and is now at God’s right hand in power ruling this world for us.

Ephesians 1:22 says that God has “put all things under his feet.” This is the ancient world’s way of describing conquest, triumph, and submission, and it’s an allusion to Psalm 8. The Psalms are very much on Paul’s mind here as he thinks about the triumph of Christ and the way of God in this world. Psalm 8 begins,

O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth! (Ps. 8:1)

It is the name of Christ that is now above every name, majestic in all the world, because He is triumphant. He is in control. He is in charge. That is our promise and hope.

Do we have this kind of confidence and assurance? Is that what grips our souls when we see and experience the sufferings of this world? Suffering is an unavoidable part of human experience, but Paul wants to say to us, “Don’t forget the power of your God given in the life and rule of Jesus Christ now as He lives and reigns for us.” Paul wants us to be thrilled by and confident in that power. Then, he turns from the power, rule, and reign of Christ to speak of Christ’s particular care for His church.

Christ’s Care for His Church

One of the temptations we may have as Christians is to wonder if Christ is so busy with big things that He doesn’t have enough time for us individually or as a local congregation. The book of Ephesians says that this is never the case, because the fullness of God’s purpose and the focus of God’s purpose is always on His church, on His people, and on accomplishing His saving plan in this world. God wants us to know these things, so Paul uses the remarkable image of Christ as the head and the church as His body (Eph. 4:11–16). He uses that image in part to say that Christ is the Lord of the church in terms of His authority over it. But even more than that, he uses this image to stress the intimate connection of Christ and the church.

In Ephesians 5, Paul relates Christ’s love for the church to a husband’s love for his wife, noting that no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church (Eph. 5:25–30). That’s what we need to think about when we hear that Christ is the head and we are the body. He’s our head to nourish us, to feed us, to build us up. He does that powerfully through the Word and through the sacraments of His church. He is not far away but rather is present by His Spirit and in His Word, nourishing us and building us up in the faith. He does that because He cherishes us.

Sometimes we may read the Gospels and think to ourselves, “If only I had been there to see Jesus walking by the Sea of Galilee, to be with Him, to hear His voice.” And I think Jesus would say to us: “Don’t want that. You have it better than they did. You see the fullness of My work; you know the fullness of My gospel. You have the completed New Testament. I’m still with you. I’m still speaking to you. I’m still leading you. And I do that because I cherish you. I love you.” Love is one of the great themes that runs through this epistle.

Paul says in Ephesians 1:3, “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.” What a remarkable statement! We already have in Christ every spiritual blessing we could want or need because He loves us, cherishes us, and nurtures us. How thankful we should be for the love with which He’s loved us, and for the love that He calls us to emulate as He loves us. We are to love Him and to love one another. Thus, one of the themes of Ephesians is how the love of Christ for us draws us to Him and to one another. The effect of His love for us is that we would be united to one another. If we read Ephesians 1 and 2 together, we see that God made Christ alive, and God makes us alive in Christ. God seated Christ in the heavenly places, and God seats us with Christ. Now, in the heavenly places, the blessings bestowed on Christ are the blessings bestowed on us, His people whom He has united in faith and in love.

The Church’s Care for One Another

We love one another because God in Christ has broken down the greatest wall of hostility in all human history. The Scripture says there was never such division, separation, and hostility as that which existed between the Jews and gentiles. Jews were God’s people; gentiles were not. But Paul says that in Jesus Christ, the wall of separation between Jew and gentile has been torn down, so that we now have peace with God and peace with one another (Eph. 2:11–22). If that greatest separation in humanity has ended, then every other separation can’t amount to much. We are one new man, Paul says, all of us together in the church of Christ. He has brought us near together. He has joined us with one another. We are His, and we are called to love Him as He has loved us and to love one another.

We are increasingly living in a world where people find it hard to relate to those with whom they don’t agree about everything. That is not the Christian way. We are called to love one another even when we may have disagreements about strategies or procedures. We need to love one another, and in that love show the presence of Christ among us. What a great opportunity it is to show the love of Christ as we gather together, because Christ has promised in His love to make us a holy people, and holy people are always loving people.

Somehow the world has adopted the notion that if a person is holy, he is intolerant and mean-spirited. But in the Scriptures, holiness is always linked to love, and love is always linked to holiness. Christ has come that we might be a holy and blameless people. The Holy Spirit has come into our lives to make us new people, to change us, and to renew us in holiness. In love and in holiness we serve the Lord, knowing that He cares for, preserves, and watches over His church.

At the end of Ephesians 1, Paul speaks of the church as “the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:23). I think that Paul has Psalm 24 on his mind here:

The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,
the world and those who dwell therein. (Ps. 24:1)

At creation, God made this world full of wonderful creatures and other things. Paul is saying here that Christ, through His church, is beginning to fill a new world with new creatures. That’s who we are in Christ: new creatures who will inhabit the new heaven and new earth in which righteousness dwells. And in that new heaven and new earth, there will be no more suffering. Every tear will be wiped away.

Until then, our suffering serves the glory of the Lord. This theme is wonderfully taken up in Hebrews 2, where again, Psalm 8 is quoted. The author of Hebrews says that all things are subject to Jesus, but we do not yet see “everything in subjection to him” (Heb. 2:8). But by faith we see Jesus, who was made perfect through suffering.

May God grant us the faith and confidence to trust in Christ and in His purposes in this fallen world. May we seek to follow Him, and may we all be motivated by love for Him and for one another.