Ephesians Chapter 3
Originally posted Monday August 25, 2008
General Comment: In Galatians we read Paul's strong argument against the Jewish Christian attempt to convince the recently converted Christians to embrace the Law of Moses, specifically circumcision as a sign of their salvation rather than by faith alone. Ephesians, written some four decades later, has moved well beyond such debates. Church and Synagogue stand apart and Christianity in no longer considered a sect of Judaism. In Ephesians we read of the dividing wall between Judaism and Christianity as having been broken down and the two becoming one, not in any unity of belief or even association, but in access to God and inclusion as children of God. Judaism cannot claim special privilege because of the Law of Moses for in Christ that Law has been abandoned as a means of justification. We also become aware of the changing face of eternal life as the outcome of the believer's physical life, generally following resurrection. The tripartite view of eternal life as God's gift in the present is claimed for all who have faith in Christ; for God has "made us alive...with Christ...raised us up with [Christ] and seated us with him in the heavenly places" all as a present yet mystical reality. For this writer, as with the Gospel of John written at about the same time for the same area of western Asia Minor, eternal life has already begun, yet to be perfected at the beginning of the new age. We are already with Christ in the heavenly places. It is on that foundation that the writer can assure the Gentiles that they are "members of the household of God...built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.
Ephesians Chapter 3:1-13 Ministry to the Gentiles
For the sake of the Gentiles of Ephesus Paul became a "captive of Christ." He was commissioned according to God's grace and by revelation was given an understanding of the mystery of Christ (2:1-22) to be preached to them. This mystery had been hidden from humankind until God revealed it by the Spirit to "his holy prophets and apostles." This once hidden mystery, revealed through the Gospel of Christ, has proclaimed that the Gentiles "have become fellow heirs, members of the same body and sharers in the promise in Christ."
It is this Gospel for which Paul, the "very least of all the saints, has been called by God to be a servant on behalf of the Gentiles that they might share in the "boundless riches of Christ." But as with the blessing of Abraham which was passed on through his descendents, knowledge of this mystery proclaimed by prophets and apostles cannot stop with these Gentiles as if the last days were already upon them. For the writer of Ephesians that end time is far off and of secondary concern. It is now the Church, the "holy sanctuary in the Lord," in whom all Christians are joined together, that is invested with authority. It is in and through the Church that the work goes on. In effect, the writer has pronounced the end of the Apostolic Age and the beginning of a structured (catholic?) Christianity. The Church has taken on the mantle of Paul and others to proclaim the mystery and wisdom of God (Gospel of Christ). Through the Church the Gospel is to be proclaimed to the "rulers and authorities in the heavenly places" according to God's preordained purposes in Christ. Just who these "rulers and authorities" are in this case is difficult to interpret. Are they the cosmic powers of Greek and Roman mythology, the rulers of the air? Against that conclusion1:20-23 indicates that these cosmic powers have already been defeated and God "has put all things under [Christ's] feet and made him the head over all things for the church." Perhaps the answer can be found in Paul's understanding of the Gentile's bondage to idol worshipping in which it is the demons represented by the idols that are being worshipped and to whom they are making sacrifices (1 Cor. 10:20-21). In this understanding it is the Church as the body of Christ in the world that the "wisdom: of God expressed in the Gospel must be proclaimed in this present world among the pagan Gentiles.
The writer's attention to the sufferings of Paul, who was executed by Roman authority as was Jesus, is important. He reminds us of the early church's understanding of the demonic nature of the authority vested in Roman Imperial religion and personified in the Emperor. The wisdom of God "in its rich variety" must be proclaimed to the powers and principalities of the State and the mythology of power it wields. The church that will not speak truth to temporal power fails to serve the eternal power.
Ephesians Chapter 3:14-21 A Prayer for the Readers
In benedictory form the writer prays that God the Father will, through God's Spirit, strengthen the readers' spirits (inner being) with power; that Christ may dwell in them and they be "rooted and grounded in love. He prays for their comprehension of the immeasurable love of Christ and so "to be filled with all the fullness of God.
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