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God’s Plan and Purpose
The record of Jesus’ final moments with his apostles has always bothered me. They had walked together, lived through times and events that we can only imagine, yet here they were as the resurrected Christ, their master and friend, Jesus, was attempting some last minute instructions. They seemed not to hear anything that he said because they were so concerned with the politics of the day. They seemed always to return to the questions about restoring political power to Israel as well as the more personal questions regarding who would serve as Secretary of State or Defense or National Security Advisor.
As the moment of his ascension neared, he spoke to them of the salvation that would become available to them soon and gave them last minute instructions regarding that salvation.
Acts1:4-6
and, being assembled together with them, he charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, said he, ye heard from me:
For John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days hence.
They therefore, when they were come together, asked him, saying, Lord, dost thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?
It’s important to recognize that regardless of their apparent lack of apprehension, they carried out his commandments and received the promise that he was speaking of. But that they would seem so dismissive of their Master’s last minute directions seems, in retrospect, disrespectful. These were great men, however, and I believe now that I had underestimated them. There were things that they could not know yet, things that even Jesus Christ could not yet teach them because they were still hidden in God and not yet available to know. Had they known them at the time, their questions would have been different. As Israelites, they knew that salvation would come to Israel, but the true nature and magnitude of that salvation was still beyond their grasp.
The church today, even among the most knowledgeable Biblically instructed believers, has nothing but difficulty when it comes to recognizing the greatness of the salvation that we have in Christ. Church leaders continue to place their congregations under sin, condemnation, and the law, telling them what things they have to do or live up to in order to be blessed by God. Ephesians 1:3 declares that we have already been blessed with every spiritual blessing! What more can the believer do than what God has already done!
The believer should walk out of every church meeting holding his head up reminded that nothing can separate him from the love of God in Christ Jesus, that God did not withhold His own son but surrendered him as a substitute for the individual believer’s death, then raised him up to life, and that He will, with his son, freely give the believer all good things. We must once again return to that part of the Bible which is addressed to the church and take our doctrine, our right believing, from those epistles that are addressed to us, reading the rest of the Bible for our learning and distinguishing between that which is written to us and that which is addressed to Israel and the nations.
The Book of Romans provides the fundamental doctrine for the Church of the Body. The Book of Romans dispenses with the works of men, which have never had the power to confer life to the dead. We were crucified with him, died with him, buried with him, raised with him, none of which had anything to do with our works but had to do only with the work of one man, Jesus Christ. As it is written, “the righteous one shall live [in Aramaic, the sense of ‘to live’ is ‘to be saved.’ See Romans 10:9 and 10 in the Peshitta.] by believing.” This is the fundamental premise of the doctrine in Romans. It begins and ends with believing: “the righteousness of God is revealed [uncovered; no longer hidden] out of believing unto believing.” There is no other demand made.
Romans chapter eight ends its doctrinal teaching with the declarations that no one can be against us because God is for us, that God shall freely give us all things, that no accusation can be made against us, that Christ is at the right hand of God to intercede on our behalf, that we are superconquerors, and finally that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. What more could He possibly say and how much more forcefully or clearly could He say it? The deliverance and new standing of the believer before God is unambiguous and undeniable, yet how many of us upon reading these truths immediately begin to entertain thoughts to the contrary, each thought the result of religious traditions that still find their way into our minds and our teachings, each thought contrary to the truth of the deliverance “to the uttermost,” each thought predicated on our continuing need to stand before God and men acquitted by our own goodness and hard work.
The Book of Ephesians begins doctrinally where the Book of Romans ends. Whereas Romans teaches us that the believer is “not in the flesh but in the spirit,” Ephesians will teach us that we are “blessed with every blessing of the spirit in Christ.” Romans teaches us that we are “buried together, planted together, and crucified together with Christ, that because we died with him, we shall also live with him,” and Ephesians teaches us that we are “made alive together, raised together, and seated together in the heavens.”
For continuity of doctrine, right teaching regarding our salvation in Christ, we can read the conclusion of doctrinal teaching in Romans followed by the beginning of the doctrinal teaching in Ephesians:
Romans 8:38 and 39
I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Ephesians 1:3 and 4a
Blessed [be] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly [places] in Christ:
According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him
The doctrinal portion of Ephesians opens in verse three of chapter one by saying that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ. In both Greek and Aramaic the word”blessed” means literally “to speak well” of something or someone. The word eulogetos translated as “Blessed” means worthy of praise or celebration and is used only eight times in the New Testament and is used only of God, never men.
The same word in other grammatical forms is used twice more in the same verse, a form of expression known as a polyptoton, using a single word in different forms in close proximity for emphasis. These other two uses of “blessed” and “blessing” are God speaking of men. The greatness of this truth escaped me for years. I knew that “to bless” is literally to speak well of, but my understanding just did not seem to go much beyond God speaking well of the believer, which is wonderful, but I always knew there was more to this verse.
One day it occurred to me that in Genesis chapter one, the entire creation was set in order by “God speaking,” and this verse began to take on greater meaning. God once again sets the creation in order and sets the creation in motion by speaking His word, by which we now have our wisdom and righteousness and redemption and sanctification and every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies. Our new birth and the benefits conferred by the new birth are as true and palpable as the fact of the physical creation. God spoke the kosmos, the physical world, into being, setting it in order. God also spoke into being and set in order every spiritual blessing with which He blessed us in Christ Jesus. All that remains is to find out what they are and remind ourselves constantly that we are what God has spoken into being.
The verses that follow Ephesians chapter one, verse three will enumerate some of the blessings which God has spoken into being and nothing in all creation can refute. Ephesians 1:3 and 4 provide the pattern for each of the statements that follow, each of which states what God has done in Christ for the believer. The pattern is four part: 1. the blessing of God, “every spiritual blessing in the heavens”; 2. the agency by which the blessing is conferred, “in Christ”; 3. the recipient, “us”; and finally 4. the standard by which the blessing is conferred, “even as [“according to” or “according as”] He selected us before the overthrow of the world.”
Ephesians 1:3-14 can be most clearly understood when the verses are more correctly divided and read based on the series of blessings, each one followed by an amplifying statement begun with the Greek word kata or in one instance kathos translated as “according to” or “even as.” Thus divided, the verses read as follows:
Ephesians 1:3-14 (ASV)
How beautiful and wonderful? And how obvious it becomes when rightly divided rather than read based on the more random dividing of the Stephen’s Greek text.
The context of the first chapter of Ephesians is a series of blessings with which God has blessed us in Christ which is brought to completion by the prayer in which the apostle Paul prays that the believer will know “the hope of HIS calling . . . the riches of the glory of HIS inheritance . . . the exceeding greatness of HIS power . . ..” The emphasis clearly remains throughout on enumerating the things that God did in Christ for the believer. The emphasis remains throughout on God as the principal and only mover and Jesus Christ as the agent by which God moved to confer life and blessings on the members of the church. Nowhere is there any suggestion of the work of the individual believer. You must return to Romans to find that work, and it is stated clearly and repeatedly that those who are made righteous shall live, be saved, by believing only.
Many believers state these things as their beliefs and many church leaders teach these things but then begin to make conditional that which God has made absolute. The only condition is the new birth, and the only work is believing. He selected us before the original overthrow of the “world that then was.” He marked us out for “adoption” which in the Greek world was absolute and unalterable. He redeemed us, bought us out of slavery with the purchase price of the sacrifice of His only begotten son. He made us to know “the mystery of His will,” the secret of his desire, that we would become His heritage, His dwelling place at long last.
The words that follow “we were made a heritage,” provide the standard by which we were marked out before to be God’s home: “having been foreordained according to (in agreement with or in conformity to) the purpose (prothesis--the end goal, that which you set in front of you to strive toward) of him [God] who worketh (energeo, “brings about” as when moving a current from point A to point B) all things after the counsel (boule, the plan) of his own will (thelema, wish or desire).” It was God’s “eternal purpose” (Eph. 3:11) or “purpose of the ages” to find a heritage, a home in which to dwell. God selected each of us individually before the katabole (Eph. 1:4), the overthrow of the original creation, and bought us back from the slavery of sin and death for Himself by the blood sacrifice of His only begotten son so that He might have a dwelling place, the “purpose of the ages.”
The church, the great secret hidden from before the overthrow, shows forth the “purpose” of God in designing and carrying out His “plan” (Eph. 3:9-11) even as Israel was the “plan” to bring forth the Messiah and bring about redemption, God’s great desire of the ages. Of course, on the day of the ascension, these things were still secret and all the apostles knew was the expectation for the restoration of the kingdom of Israel. So, even though in retrospect their questions seem out of place and impatient of what Jesus Christ was trying to explain, the apostles’ question might be somewhat more comprehensible, “wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel.” They knew only the plan. It would be some years before the great secret would be revealed to a former “pharisee of pharisees” so that they might understand the purpose.
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Comments
Greg,
I was very blessed by your expose' on the doctrine we should all know so well (especially after all these years). It was great to see all of it put together so succinctly. Thank you!