Trinity Church CDA

The Gospel we proclaim is first one of new life in Christ, and then one of morals. This is a whole lot different than mere moralism. For without the life of Christ, the moralism part won't work. It's like bearing fruit without having any roots. As Christ said to His disciples, so He says to us: "Apart from Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). This is absolutely central to our life as Christians. We cannot participate in the economy of grace unless we first receive God's grace. We cannot become a life-giver, if we have not first received life. Alienated from God, we come thirsty to Him; but then, in Christ, we are grafted into new life. We abide in Him, and so we become actual Christians-not stoics, not deists, not humanists - but branches abiding in Christ's vine, and so we bear much fruit.

Typically we think of economy as monetary. It certainly includes that. But originally, the word economy, from the Greek word, oikonomia, meant, literally, the law of the house (oikos means house, nomos means law). It referred to and encompassed all that went into good household management. Oikonomia involved how the paterfamilias, the man of the house, organized the resources, labor, and production within his home, including agriculture, slaves, and family matters. When this is applied to God’s world, we have His household in view: how God Himself manages His home. And as we’ve seen, it is marked by grace. It is marked by a continual giving that results in still more giving. This is how God’s household works: it is the rule of His home. If we will live in His home, this is the law we must live by. Our life ought to be a continual receiving of grace from God, through His various channels of grace, and then giving that grace out to those around us, becoming a channel ourself. In this manner is the household of God built up.

In contrast to a worldly economy oriented around and motivated by, at best, natural self-interest, and at worst by avarice and greed, God’s economy is centered on the common good of seeing one another built up in Christ. In a worldly economy, you, the individual, are set at the very center of your world. Fortuitously, as you seek your own gain and your own profit, that happens sometimes to benefit others, too. But that’s not what God’s economy says. God’s economy of grace calls us to give ourselves to one another even as He has given Himself to us, so that we might be built up, united together, and filled with Christ. That’s the framework for our lives, the lives we live together, next to one another, near one another.

From our sevenfold oneness, Paul in our passage turns to address the Church’s diversity. The unity we share is the unity of a body. And a body is made of many members. Every cell in your body contains the same genetic code. But not every cell in your body is the same kind of cell. Your body is made up of a variety of different cells, doing all kinds of things. This is how

God has arranged our physical bodies, and it is how God has arranged Christ’s spiritual body. We are tied together by a strong seven-cord unity. But we are tied together without erasing our differences. In fact, we need our differences. Just as the body cannot function were it just a foot, so the body of Christ is comprised of many members that are to work together and build

itself up until we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13)

In this passage, Paul calls upon God to send us the strength we need in order to rise up to meet the high calling God has placed upon on our lives when He united us to His Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. If we miss this and skip over what Paul says here, we will find ourselves like a tree with no roots, like a building without a foundation. We will not last long, and we will not be able to carry out the calling we have received. But likewise, we cannot simply stop here. If we refuse to get to all the doing, then we are a tree without any fruit. In that case we are the fig tree that Jesus found on His way into Jerusalem. It had leaves, but no fruit. We must have both. Just as the tree with solid roots bears much fruit, so the Christian rooted and grounded will walk in a manner worthy of the calling he has received.

The Church is the medium or the microphone through which the manifold wisdom of God is made known, not simply to the rest of the world, but also to the angels. According to the Apostles, the story that God is telling in this world is like a kind of theater production, and we have an angelic audience. What does this story proclaim? What is this audience learning as they behold the spectacle before their eyes? They behold the glory of God. And in particular, as Paul says in our passage, they see the manifold wisdom of God. The Lord’s dealings with mankind through this story of redemption makes known for all to see the manifold wisdom of God in the unsearchable riches of Christ. All of creation and all of redemption redounds to the glory of God’s glorious wisdom in Jesus—and the angels are eagerly attentive to it. The holy angels are astounded by what fallen angels are confounded by what they see, gnashing their teeth.

The proverb says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Prov. 13:12). When our hopes, our expectations are put off, this can make us spiritually sick; it can make us angry, bitter, resentful, cynical. It can even send us into a downward spiral of despair ending even in unbelief. In order to guard against such things we would do well to learn from from Paul and his faithful life of serving Christ. We ought to learn to set our expectations like Paul set his, for Paul knew what to expect of His Lord. He knew what to expect from this life. As a result, he was unmoved despite all that he faced; he remained tireless in joy, tireless in service, tireless in loving the people of God. And this mindset is captured right here in how he speaks of himself, saying, “I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you, Gentiles.”

At the Cross peace is brokered. We are forgiven our sins. We put down the violence of our hands. We are welcomed into the Kingdom. But that’s not the end of it. Now we have to get to work. God in Christ tears down the nations, and He also in Christ builds us up. He builds us up into a united people, and this unity is a rich and complex and abundant unity. It is the unity of the body made up of many members, the unity of a great oak tree with lots of different branches. It is the unity of a grapevine filling the entire world, bearing fruit in every climate, in every soil, in every place. This unity is accomplished without erasing our distinctions, but rather perfecting them. For the Gospel sanctifies and matures all the nations of the world, so that the Lord God is worshipped in every language, by every people.

What God is doing in and through Christ Jesus is a cosmic work. He is gathering together into one all things in Christ, both things which are in heaven and things which are on earth (Eph. 1:10). Paul unpacks this cosmic work by drawing out God’s purposes on the world stage. What God is doing in Christ Jesus concerns not merely the family or the local community, but all the nations of the earth. It is good news, not just for Israel, but for all the peoples. For Jesus is set as King over all kingdoms (Dan. 7:14). The Gospel is no merely private matter. It is public. It is political, for the kingdom of heaven shall rule over all, and all the nations of the earth shall bring their glory and honor into it (Rev. 21:26).

Paul frequently discusses works throughout his letters. It is one of the significant theme we find. But if we are not careful we can forget that he speaks about works in two different ways. On the one hand, he clearly states that works cannot justify. And yet, he also commands works. If we are not careful we can grab one side of Paul’s teaching, and end up misunderstanding him.