Study Notes Ed Underwood

Ephesians: Our Riches in Christ “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ.” (Ephesians 1:3)

The thirteen Pauline Epistles develop the foundational truths of Christianity introduced in the Gospels. Paul wrote nine letters to churches and four to individuals. He writes from the perspective of the Apostle to the Gentiles, church-planter, pastor, and friend. His letters contain instructions, exhortations, and corrections that were real-time—messages to real people, gathered in real churches, with real problems as they endeavored to follow Christ and make a difference in their world. One consistent theme undergirds all of Paul’s teaching—the reality of every believer’s position in Christ.

No epistle emphasizes that core truth more than Ephesians. His phrase “in Christ” (or its equivalent) occurs about thirty-five times, far more than in any other New Testament book. And no church was richer in Christ than the privileged Ephesians. Paul had visited Ephesus at the end of his 2nd missionary journey where he left his dynamic church planting couple, Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18:18-21). The city was one of the most important economic and religious cities in the Roman Empire.

So, on his 3rd, the Apostle Paul headquartered there for nearly three years in AD 53-56 (Acts 19:20:30), and revival broke out in the entire province. About five years later, during his first imprisonment in Rome, Paul sent this letter, along with Colossians and Philemon.

Ephesians is to Colossians what Romans is to Galatians, “a fuller treatment of the same general theme in a more detached and impersonal manner (Harold W. Hoehner, Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary, p. 34). Romans and Galatians focus on salvation; Ephesians and Colossians focus on the church. Ephesians is Paul’s most definitive letter on the body of Christ, the New Testament church. It is the Holy Spirit’s exposition of Jesus’ promise in Matthew 16:18, “I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.” In six chapters Paul presents the church as God’s mystery now revealed in all its glory, richly blessed to prevail against God’s enemies as never before.

We know from Revelation 2, that the Ephesian church would forsake their first love—Jesus Christ. It may be that the Apostle was already concerned that they were becoming complacent in their love for the Savior whose work had opened the heavens for blessing. So, Paul wrote this letter that “focuses on what God did through the historical work of Jesus Christ and does through His Spirit today, in order to build his new society in the midst of the old.” (John Stott, The Message of Ephesians, p. 24).

Possessing ultimate spiritual wealth, the Ephesians were beginning to live like spiritual paupers, and consequently falling out of love with the Lord Jesus. Their founding pastor and Apostle sends this letter from prison in Rome. His purpose seems clear—to shock them out of the dangerous spiritual complacency

Ephesians tells Christians that God’s action in bringing salvation to the world centers on the local church and its members obeying Christ’s command to love one another as He uses them to defeat His enemies.

I. Use your blessings in Christ by pursuing your destiny in Christ.

1. Prologue: Remember your riches in Christ! (1:1-2:7)

   1. Praise God for your blessings and pray for an even deep understanding of your riches in Christ.

   2. Always keep in mind that you were sinners, but are now saints saved by grace to be seated in heaven.

2. Theme: Fulfill your destiny in Christ—saved by grace to serve by grace! (2:8-10) 1. Which is yours only by grace (2:8-9)

  Remember your riches in Christ!

2. Which is yours to glorify His work(2:10)

C. Body: Live up to your calling in Christ—help build God’s glorious church (2:11-6:20).

1. By understanding the church’s glorious role on earth, place in history, and significance in the plan of God (2:11-3:21).

2. By living lives which glorify God in the church—single-minded, submissive and strong (4:1- 6:20)

D. Epilogue: Paul assures his friends of Tychusis’ upcoming visit with news from Rome (6:21-24).

II. EPHESIANS AND YOU: When Jesus told Peter, “I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it” (Matthew 16:18), he had you and your community of faith in mind! What a glorious destiny.

1. Have you forgotten your riches in Christ? Rekindle your love for Christ by meditating on your riches in Him so that you will pursue your destiny in Him. “Ephesians reveals that the church is part of God’s eternal plan, and it grows as a result of God’s power working through believers’ lives, overcoming their spiritual resources.” (Tom Constable, Ephesians, p. 6)

2. Have you forgotten the place of your local church in history? Rekindle your love for the Bride of Christ by meditating on its calling as the only hope for this wicked world. “Ephesians is ultimately about how God has powerfully equipped the church to experience the blessing in Christ by creating a new community that is able to honor God and resist the forces of evil. No longer does one’s Jewish or Gentile identity dominate. They are part of a new reconciled community, a reconciliation that involves not only God but also one another. All enablement in this new sacred community is rooted in what the exalted Christ had provided for His people. That is why believers can have hope, since they have begun participation in a wealth of benefits distributed from heaven. The church’s members are citizens raised and seated with Jesus in a heavenly citizenship, though they represent Him now as light on the earth, fully enabled for the task. In all of this, God is taking steps toward the ultimate summation of all things in Christ.” (Darrell Bock, A Biblical Theology of the New Testament, p. 319).

3. Remembrance Meditations: Because of Christ’s work on the Cross ...

   ... I am a radically gifted person with a radically eternal purpose in life living in a radically significant community.

   ... I have received the only hope in this world to become the world’s only hope in history.

   ... I am one of the most privileged persons in history serving God in the most privileged community in history.