Ephesus is located in the Roman Province of Asia (i.e., Asia Minor – the western part of Turkey, towards the coast of the Aegean Sea). The seven churches of Revelation Chapters 1 – 3 (Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea) are all located in this region.
It is likely that the gospel was brought to Ephesus by Aguila and Prescilla (whom Paul first met in Corinth). Paul visited Ephesus briefly at the end of his second missionary journey (AD 50 – AD 53). Paul’s presence in Ephesus at that time caused a degree of uproar. When he left to continue his journey, he left Aguila and Prescilla in charge.
On his third missionary journey (AD 53 – AD 57), Paul spent three years in Ephesus, using it as a base from which to evangelise the region. After Paul left, Timothy remained in charge, and he pastored the congregation there for about a year and a half. He had to deal with false teaching from a few influential men (such as Hymenaeus and Alexander) who may have been elders.
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians was written during his period of incarceration (AD 60 – AD 62); when at least his movements were restricted if he wasn’t actually in a prison cell. There does not seem to have been any specific issue in the church which prompted the letter. It was probable designed as a circular letter for the churches in the region and was carried to Asia by Tychicus.
The purpose of the letter was simply to strengthen the believers in the region. Paul at the end of his time in Ephesus had warned the leaders that false teachers (“savage wolves”) would come in and attack the faith of the congregation. Still the preaching within the letter is general but with a particular emphasis on believing Jews and Gentiles as the “one new man” in the Lord Yeshua and salvation by faith in Him alone.
The impetus for the letter may have come from Epaphras who informed Paul of a growing threat to the faith in the Lycus valley.
The overall tone of the letter emphasises the truth that all believers are united in the Lord Yeshua because the church is one body empowered by God for Jews and Gentiles, with the Lord Yeshua as its head.
The reconciliation with God has its effects on the earth. People who were normally divided, like Jews and Gentiles in the first century, were reconciled to each other. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul exhorted his readers to live out spiritual truths, being joined together in Messiah. Whether Jew or Gentile, they must work together to make the unity of the church a reality.
Paul also provided a number of practical ways for church members to unite against the forces of evil. Each individual must play his/her part in order for the body to function properly. Each person had to display the Lord’s love, patience, humility and gentleness using their gifts to build up the church.
From parent to child, from employer to employee, each person has a unique task in the body.
Believers should be grateful for the immeasurable blessings from the Lord and live in a manner worthy of His blessings; avoiding self-satisfaction and complacency and recognising the need for vigilance and persistent prayer.
So, after that general overview, let us look at extracts which seem particularly helpful.
Ephesians 1: 7 – 12. Our unity in the Lord Yeshua.
“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sin, according to the riches of His grace, which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fulness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth – in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.”
Verse 7.” Redemption” means to buy back or to ransom. Messiah has bought us back from slavery to sin. This was something only He could do and therefore our redemption is “in Him”. The forgiveness of sins is a result of redemption. But without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness. The Old Testament sacrificial system looked forward to the self-sacrifice of the Lord Yeshua whose death and resurrection paid the price for the sins of the world.
Verse 8. Redemption brings in the limitless grace of God as well as the forgiveness of sin and divinely bestowed spiritual understanding i.e., “all wisdom and prudence”. It was in grace that He chose us, predestined us and forgave us.
Verse 9. This verse talks of a mystery “made known to us”. This mystery is an aspect of God’s will that was once hidden or obscure which now has been revealed by God. God has graciously shared His plans and purposes with us. One vital feature of the mystery is that believing Jews and believing Gentiles have a share in the grand programme of God. His desire is that we should have intelligence and insight into His plans for the church and the universe. And so, He has taken us into HIs confidence (as it were) and has revealed to us the great goal towards which all history is moving.
God has made His plan “according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself”.
Verse 10. God’s purpose is that “He might gather together in one all things in Christ”. At the end of the world’s history, God will gather believers together in the millennial kingdom, here referred to as “the dispensation of the fullness of time”; meaning the completion of history. After that God will gather everything to Himself in eternity and the new heaven and the new earth will be created. This new universe will be totally unified under Messiah. The saviour, once rejected, will be the pre-eminent one. He will be the Lord of all; the object of universal worship.
Verse 11. The Lord Yeshua is the source of the believer’s divine inheritance which is so certain that it is spoken of as if it had already been received.
“Being pre-destined” indicates that before the earth was formed, God had sovereignly determined that every elect sinner, no matter how vile, useless and deserving of death, by trusting in the Lord Yeshua would be made righteous.
Verse 12. When God created the world, He gave it sufficient energy to begin to operate immediately. It was not simply ready to function but was created functioning. As God works out His plan according to “the counsel of His will”, He energises every believer with the power for spiritual completion. “To the praise of His glory”: God’s glory is the supreme purpose of redemption. Thus, Paul’s desire is to demonstrate the absolute centrality and power of Messiah and he has provided us this excellent exposition.
Ephesians 2: 14 – 18. As we noted before Paul wanted to emphasise Jew and Gentile together: the one new man. This we see in our second extract.
“For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.”
Verse 14. “He Himself”; this emphatically indicates that Messiah is the believer’s source of peace.
Verse 15. “the middle wall of partition”: this was the actual partition between Jew and Gentile in the Temple area, with a warning that any Gentile going beyond the Court of the Gentiles would receive a swift death. Here Paul uses the “middle wall” as a symbol of the social, religious and spiritual separation that kept Jew and Gentile apart.
The Lord Yeshua has “has abolished in the flesh the enmity”. Through His death the Lord abolished the Old Testament ceremonial laws and sacrifices which separated Jew and Gentile. God’s moral law, of course, has not been abolished but is subsumed in the New Covenant as it reflects God’s holy nature. God’s law as summarised by the Commandments becomes written in the hearts of people. In the Lord Yeshua, the righteous standards that people could never reach have been accomplished. He is our righteousness! In Him, believers fulfil the law.
The church composed of Jews and Gentiles is described as “one new man”. In the earliest days of the faith, the church was largely made up of Jews. But under the direction of God’s Spirit, the believers witnessed to Gentiles who being more numerous came to outnumber the Jews in time.
Spiritually, a new believer becomes a new person. Messiah does not exclude anyone who comes to Him. Those who are His are not spiritually distinct from one another but are born anew becoming unlike what they were before – being different in kind and quality.
Verse 16. “reconciled them both to God”. As Jew and Gentile are brought together in the Lord, they are brought together with each other. This is accomplished by the cross, where Messiah became a curse, taking God’s wrath, so that divine justice was satisfied and reconciliation with God became a reality.
Verse 17. “preached peace”. The Greek word translated “peace” literally means “to bring or announce good news”. In the New Testament it is almost always used to proclaim the good news that sinners can be reconciled to God by the salvation which is through the Lord Yeshua. In this context, the Lord Himself is our peace and He announces the good news of peace to those “afar off and near” i.e., Jew and Gentile alike.
Verse 18. “access by one Spirit to the Father”. No sinner has any right or worthiness in himself for access to God. But believers have been granted that right through faith in Messiah’s sacrificial death. The resources of the tri-une Godhead belong to believers the moment they receive the Lord, and the Holy Spirit presents them before the heavenly throne of God the Father where they are welcome to come with boldness at any time.
So, Paul seeking to examine the unity of Jew and Gentile in Messiah gives this excellent exposition of the “mystery” that is the church.
Ephesians 3: 14 – 19. Paul draws attention to the power of the Lord Yeshua in the heart of the believer. This we see in our third extract.
“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Verse 14. “For this reason”; we must go back to chapter 2 where Paul describes what the Gentiles had been like by nature before they became believers. He saw their astonishing rise from poverty and death to riches and glory. Paul prays that they will always live in the practical enjoyment of their new exalted position. He prays, of course, “to the Father”. He is the Creator of all mankind. But in a more restricted sense, He is the Father of all believers, meaning that He has begotten us into His spiritual family.
Paul bows the knee to “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” indicating the equal status of “The Father” and “The Son”.
Verse 15. The Lord Yeshua “from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named”. All the redeemed in heaven and on the earth look to Him as head of the family. Because of their new identity in Messiah, all believers are spiritually alive, unified in God’s household, the dwelling place of God built on the work of the apostles and the prophets.
All created beings, angelic and human, owe their existence to Him, not only as individuals but as families as well. All fatherhood in the universe derives its name from God. The fatherhood of God is the original and the ideal; the protype for all paternal relationships.
Verse 16. Paul prays for the Ephesian believers that God “would grant” them spiritual strength “according to the riches of His glory” i.e., abundantly. How are they to be strengthened? “with might through the Spirit in the inner man”. The spiritual power which is required is not for the performing of miracles but for spiritual vigour to make stable, intelligent believers.
The One who imparts the power of the Holy Spirit can give us strength as we feed on the word of God and pray. This power is experienced “in the inner man”, i.e., the spiritual part of our nature. It is the inner man which delights in the law of God and can be renewed day-by-day even when the outward man is perishing.
Verse 17. The desired result of this strengthening for the believer is “that Christ may dwell in your heart through faith”. To dwell, of course, suggests setting up home; the Lord Yeshua resides in the believer’s heart.
Actually, the Lord takes up residence with the believer at the time of conversion. But Paul wants Him to feel at home; a permanent resident with every saved person. Nothing we do should grieve Him.
The foundation for the joy of knowing the Lord’s indwelling is “love”; the love which the Lord has for us – so great that it is beyond our understanding.
Our hearts are the centre of our spiritual being. Our hearts cleansed by God, are filled with the Spirit. We must take the Lord’s love for us into our hearts and have it firmly established within us (“grounded and rooted”). All depends on “faith”: the continuing trust in the Lord Yeshua to allow Him to exercise lordship in our lives.
Verse 18. In effect, Paul’s prayer for the saints is that the lordship of our saviour might extend beyond our inner being to outward signs; the books we read, the money we spend, the words we use, the minutest details of our lives. We must allow the Lord unrestricted access to our hearts; to establish in love a way of life full of kindness, selflessness, holiness and meekness i.e., the example of Messiah.
The more we can be strengthened by the Holy Spirit, the more we will be like the Lord Himself. With the strengthening by the Holy Spirit, a believer can understand the fullness of God’s love but only through genuine, Spirit-empowered love in his own life.
But note, this is to be “with all the saints”. Love is both granted to every believer but is also commanded of every believer; not just to those who by temperament find it easy or who have great spiritual maturity.
Verse 19. Paul wants his readers to know “the love of Christ which passes knowledge”. The love of the Lord Yeshua is for the world. To understand the Lord’s love is far beyond the capacity of human reasoning and experience. It is so great that it leads to the cross. His love is only known to those who are God’s children but we should be seeking ever deeper knowledge.
Paul wants his readers to be “filled with all the fullness of God”, that is, to be so strong spiritually, so compelled by divine love, that they are totally dominated by the Lord with nothing left to self. Human comprehension of the fullness of God is impossible; even the most wise and spiritual believer cannot grasp the full extent of God’s abilities and characteristics. No one can comprehend His power, His majesty, His wisdom, His divine love, His mercy, His kindness and everything He is and does. But the believer can experience something of the greatness of God in life as a result of total devotion to Him.
Our fourth and final extract relates to Paul’s desire to instruct his readers in practical life in the faith.
Ephesians 4: 1 – 6. To walk in unity.
“I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all and in you all.”
Verse 1. This verse emphasises the behaviour which should result from the doctrine of belief taught in this letter. The believer’s life is compared to a walk. The term “walk” describes a person’s entire lifestyle but also something involving progress; going somewhere. For a “walk” to be “worthy” for the Ephesians, it must be consistent with their position as children of God; a member of the body of the Lord Yeshua.
Paul describes himself as a “prisoner of the Lord”; not of course that the Lord locked him up. Quite the contrary, the Lord has set him free from sin. But he is incarcerated as a result of his faithful service and obedience to the Lord. He does not consider imprisonment for this reason to be shameful. But he does remind the Ephesians that there can be temporary costs in following the Lord.
Verse 2. “lowliness” equals humility; to esteem others better than oneself – the opposite of conceit and arrogance. Apparently, there was no word for “humility” in the Greek dictionary of Paul’s day. The Greek word used here had to coined by believers.
“gentleness” equals meekness. Submission to God’s direction without rebellion and to man’s unkindness without retaliation is involved here. Gentleness is an inevitable product of humility; involving a mild-spirited and self-controlled demeanour.
“long-suffering” refers to an even disposition; patience under prolonged provocation. This sort of resolved patience is an outgrowth of humility and gentleness.
These are the attributes which the Lord demonstrated when He was on the earth. For people these do not come naturally, but must be cultivated by the determination to place others above ourselves. Only the Spirit can empower us to act this way consistently.
“bearing with one another” means making allowances for the faults and failings of others or people of a different personality type, abilities or temperament. It involves showing positive love to those who may irritate or embarrass us. Being patient with the shortcoming of others is to show the same patience we ask of God for ourselves. This is a forbearing love for others which is continuous and unconditional.
Verse 3. “unity of the Spirit”. The Holy Spirit bestows oneness on all believers. In forming the church, God had eliminated the greatest division existing among human beings; the rift between Jew and Gentile. In the Lord such distinctions are abolished.
The Holy Spirit has created the bond of peace, and the bond is love. It is our duty to “keep” (i.e., observe and preserve) that unity, recognizing that it is real and acting upon it. “Endeavouring” indicates that ongoing work is required by us all to maintain that unity.
Verse 4. Despite all the differences of race, ethnicity, nationality, culture, language and temperament amongst believers, there is only “one body” (the church) made up of all believers from Pentecost to the Rapture.
“One Spirit”. The same Holy Spirit who indwells each believer also indwells the body of the Lord (i.e., the church).
“One hope”. Every believer is called to one destiny: to be with the Lord Yeshua, to be like Him and to share in His glory. The promise of eternal inheritance is given to each believer and is sealed by the Holy Spirit.
“One Lord”. There is one God and one Lord (the Lord Yeshua) through whom are all things and through whom we live.
“One faith”, that is the body of doctrine once and for all delivered and presented in the gospels and all the New Testament.
“One baptism”, that is, water baptism through which converts confess their identification with Messiah and His death and resurrection.
“One God”; the “Father of all” who is supreme in the universe “above all”. Paul’s point is not to distinguish between the persons of the Godhead but to explain that although they have unique roles, they are completely unified in every aspect of their divine nature and plan. God acts “through all”, using everything to achieve His purpose. And is “in you all”, as He indwells all believers and is present in all places at one time and the same time.
Conclusion.
In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we see the absolute centrality and the power of the Lord Yeshua. He has the power to reconcile sinners to God. He has the power to transform lives; it only requires our willingness to trust in Messiah and grant Him lordship in our hearts. If we can do this, we can walk worthy of our calling.
In the letter, we also see the fundamental need for spiritual unity in Him and the mystery that is the church.
Despite Paul’s time in Ephesus and this letter, we note in Revelation 2: 1 – 7 that the church in Ephesus within a generation had “lost their first love”. John is instructed to write to them to “remember … from where you have fallen; repent and do your first works”.
We can all benefit from remembering that rush of power and joy we experienced when we first believed. If to any extent, we have lost it. We should pray for its return, knowing that this will be granted to us.
AMEN.