Grace & Peace | Ephesians 1:1-2
Intro
The word “spam” has come to mean all kinds of unwanted, unsolicited communication: not just email, but mail, phone calls, and even text messages and DMs now. Did you know spam gets its name from SPAM, that heavily processed canned “meat”? (Which is made just 3 hours from here in Austin, MN, but that’s not relevant.)
There is a Monty Python sketch from 1970 where a group of Vikings keeps chanting “SPAM, SPAM, SPAM” over and over, drowning out conversation—kind of like how unsolicited messages drown out meaningful communication in your inbox.
Has your inbox ever been so overrun with spam that you miss an important message? I guess it’s possible and you don’t even know!
What about your life and your mind? Sometimes it’s like all of the noise and busyness and news and social media is chanting, “SPAM, SPAM, SPAM,” so loudly that anything meaningful is drowned out.
The Letter to the Ephesians contains a message that you must not miss, amidst all the noise. My aim this morning is to persuade you to give your undivided attention to receiving and believing and applying the contents of this letter over the next five months. That’s what the greeting of a letter is meant to do.
Ephesians 1:1–2
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
A Glorious Book
Ephesians is a glorious book. I started to develop the habit of daily Bible reading as a teenager, but I didn’t have a Bible reading plan for years. I would pick a book of the Bible based on what I felt like reading. And I think the book I read the most in those days was the book of Ephesians. It turns out, I’m not alone.
One scholar said, “Among the [writings of Paul], only Romans can match Ephesians as a candidate for exercising the most influence on Christian thought and spirituality.” If Christian is the most dominant influence in world, and if Paul is arguably the dominant theologian of Christianity, and if Ephesians is one of Paul’s most influential letters, then it’s fair to conclude, as one commentator does, that Ephesians is “one of the most significant letters in human history.”
Another says, “‘Pound for pound’ Ephesians may well be the most influential document ever written.” Ephesians has been called “the crown and climax of Pauline Theology,” “the most distilled essence of the Christian Religion,” and even “the Switzerland of the New Testament” (for its soaring peaks and stunning landscapes).
Ephesians was John Calvin’s favorite letter. The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge called Ephesians “the divinest composition of man.” Another commentator called it “the Queen of the epistles.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, “If the Epistle to the Romans is the purest expression of the gospel, the Epistle to the Ephesians is the sublimest and the most majestic expression of it.” Another commentator declares, “The explanation of the gospel and of life with Christ provided here is powerful and direct. If read receptively, it is a bombshell.”
John Mackay, a missionary and theologian who later served as the president of Princeton Seminary, came to faith in Christ by reading the book of Ephesians. When he was 14, wandering in the highlands of Scotland, he read through Ephesians. And this is what he says happened to him: “I saw a new world. Everything was new. I had a new outlook, new experiences, new attitudes to other people. I loved God. Jesus Christ became the centre of everything ... I had been ‘quickened’; I was really alive ….” Mackay described Ephesians as “truth that sings, doctrine set to music.”
What have all these scholars and poets and theologians beheld in Ephesians? What does Ephesians contain that can so stir the soul? Why should you pay attention to Ephesians? And what can you expect to find here?
The point of the greeting at the beginning of this letter is meant to answer that. The brief greeting in vv. 1–2 sets the stage and grabs our attention. It tells us that this is a Spirit-inspired, divinely authoritative written revelation of the ultimate purpose of God in the cosmos and the glory of his grace toward the church. And it is for you.
The structure of Paul’s greeting has three parts. It begins by identifying the author. Then it identifies the letter’s intended audience. And then it expresses the theological aim of the letter. That will be our structure.
The Author
Just like an envelope has the sender’s name and address in the top left corner, or a formal letter has the sender’s information at the top, ancient letters began by identifying the sender. That’s how Ephesians begins: “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God” (Ephesians 1:1).
Recently, some so-called “scholars” have debated this, but they’re the kind of people who read all of Scripture from a place of suspicion rather than trust. None of their arguments are convincing, and we have no reason not to believe that Ephesians was written by Paul the Apostle.
An Apostle
First, Paul identifies himself as “an apostle.” Apostle means one who is sent for a specific purpose. Think of an ambassador or messenger. Specifically, Paul calls himself “an apostle of Christ Jesus.” In the New Testament, apostles were sent by Jesus in order to represent Jesus. And Paul says that his apostleship was “by [or through] the will of God.” His authority as an apostle was determined by God’s plan and purpose.
Paul’s own understanding of his calling is evident throughout Ephesians. In 3:2–3 he speaks of “the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation ….” Paul described his ministry as “the stewardship of God’s grace.” He was not the owner or inventor or even the discoverer of the gospel. He was a steward, one entrusted with managing the possessions of another. The mystery of the gospel, as he calls it throughout Ephesians, was revealed to him.
He goes on: “Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things” (Ephesians 3:7–9).
Do you hear Paul’s humility, even as he expresses his authority to declare the gospel? Paul’s ministry and mission was not something he attained by his own choice. Paul was a messenger of the gospel by God’s choice and by God’s grace.
That much is obvious from his dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus. While on his way to arrest and kill Christians—“breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Ac 9:1–2)—the risen Lord Jesus appeared to him in a blinding light from heaven (Ac 9:3).
And Jesus revealed his purpose for Paul: “He is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:15–16).
A Prisoner
Paul’s gospel ministry was marked by suffering, which magnified the worth of Christ. In Ephesians 6:20, Paul calls himself “an ambassador in chains.” That’s because he wrote this letter from prison (probably in Rome around A.D. 62). In 3:1 he refers to himself as “a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles” (cf. Eph 4:1). And in 3:13 he says, “So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory” (Ephesians 3:13).
Bringing the gospel to Ephesus and the cities of Asia Minor cost Paul greatly. He endured a violent riot in Ephesus led by Demetrius the silversmith (Ac 19:23–41). He wrote in 1 Cor 15:32, “What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus?” While there was an arena in Ephesus, Paul probably mean this metaphorically, referring to his struggle against dangerous and bloodthirsty enemies who opposed the gospel.
Describing his experiences in and around Ephesus, he told the Corinthians, “For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.” (2 Corinthians 1:8–10).
The sentence of death! Delivered by God from deadly peril!
Paul was an apostle (1:1), steward (3:2), and ambassador (6:20), commissioned to declare the glorious mysteries of the gospel to the world, no matter the cost. Paul was commissioned by God, inspired by the Spirit of God, and willing to endure unimaginable agony to publish these truths for the world. And that’s why you should pay attention to the Letter to the Ephesians above all the other voices and influencers and sources of information around you.
Ephesians contains truth worth dying for, and that’s the first reason you should pay attention to it.
The Audience
After identifying himself as the author, Paul identifies his intended audience: To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 1:1). There are several phrases here packed with meaning.
Believers
Start with the last one, which is translated in English as “faithful in Christ Jesus.” A better translation would be “believers in Christ Jesus.” Rather than speaking of the character or integrity of his audience (i.e., those who are faithful or loyal), Paul is addressing those who believe in Christ. “... you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him … ” (Ephesians 1:13). “... I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus …” (Ephesians 1:15). So this letter is addressed to those who believe in Christ Jesus. They have heard the gospel and responded in faith.
The Holy Ones
Paul also addresses his audience as “the saints.” Whatever you think in your mind when you hear “saints,” that simply means “the holy ones.” Paul’s description of his audience echoes the language of the Old Testament, where God’s people are defined by holiness.
“For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”
— Deuteronomy 7:6
God’s people are holy because God chose them and set them apart. And because they were redeemed and set apart by a holy God, they were called to live holy lives: “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2).
This was fundamental to Paul’s view of the New Covenant people of God. Paul began several other letters by addressing his audience as saints or holy ones (Eph 1, Rom 1, 1 Cor 1, 2 Cor 1, Phil 1, Col 1).
This is a gospel identity, which is true of everyone who is in Christ. It’s not that Christians are, by their own effort, morally superior to everyone else. Paul says in Ephesians 2, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Ephesians 2:1–3).
That’s who they were—dead in sin, sons of disobedience, children of wrath. And Paul addresses them as saints, “the holy ones.” In chapter 5, Paul says, “At one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8).
All who believe in Christ are saints.If you are trusting in Christ, you are holy, set apart to live a God-centered life. You are saints.
In Ephesus
There’s one more identifier. Paul addresses “the saints who are in Ephesus.” There is some debate whether or not that phrase was in the original letter. A few of the oldest copies we have do not include “in Ephesus” in verse 1.
Also, this letter is oddly impersonal compared to Paul’s other letters. For example, Romans and Colossians both end with numerous personal greetings, even though Paul had not visited either church in person (Rom 1:11; Col 2:1). We know from Acts that Paul spent about three years in the city of Ephesus (Acts 19:10; 20:31), yet Ephesians doesn’t have a single personal greeting. How do we explain that?
I think the most likely explanation is that this letter was more like an open letter—a letter that addressed Christian churches in general throughout the region of Western Asia Minor. Ephesus was the major city in that region, and probably the primary recipient. Thus the letter came to be associated with that city. But Paul probably meant for the letter to be circulated to all of the churches in that region, like Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. (Those were the seven churches in Revelation.)
This means this letter is specifically written to serve the church in general and not any one particular church context. This is one reason the theology of Ephesians is so universally appealing and edifying. As Lloyd-Jones says, Ephesians “looks at the Christian salvation from the vantage point of the ‘heavenly places’.” Rather than diving into the weeds of any local controversies, it gives “a panoramic view” of God’s cosmic work of redemption through Christ and in the church. Ephesians is for the Church, for all the saints in any age who believe in Christ. Ephesians is for you, the saints of Emmaus Road Church who believe in Christ, and that’s the second reason you should pay attention to it.
The Aim
Paul indicates his aim in v. 2: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” The typical Greek letter began with the word chairein, Rejoice! Or Greetings! But Paul invented his own greeting by swapping chairein (greetings) for charis (grace). This transformed a greeting into a blessing and set the tone for the theological content and aim of the letter.
Most likely “grace and peace” comes from the Old Testament blessing God told the high priest Aaron to pronounce over the people of Israel: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24–26). Numbers 6:27 adds, “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”
What is striking here is that Paul pronounces this blessing in the name of “God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Christians enjoy the privilege of knowing God as Father—our Father, Paul says. And Jesus, the man from Nazareth, is the Christ. That’s not a proper name; that’s a royal title rooted in God’s promises to King David and his heir. The Christ (Greek) or Messiah (Hebrew) is God’s anointed King who establishes the rule and reign of God.
For Paul, the letter’s greeting was not a formality, like “To Whom It May Concern.” It was a theological statement capturing the essence of the gospel message at the heart of the letter: grace and peace. Grace is Paul’s theme because his message is all about the glory of God’s grace. And peace with God comes through the grace of Christ. Are you at peace with God through the grace of Christ?
Now, it’s true that Paul begins all of his letters this way, either with this exact wording (Rom, 1 Cor, 2 Cor, Gal, Eph, Phil, 2 Thess, and Philemon) or something very close. But repetition does not cheapen this introductory blessing. It emphasizes grace and peace as new covenant realities for all who are in Christ.
So what particular grace from God is available in the pages of Ephesians? I’ll mention four themes to look for in the weeks and months ahead.
Trinitarian Theology
The theology of Ephesians is profound, and it is especially rich with a functional Trinitarianism. That is, the Trinity is not a doctrinal puzzle to ponder. The Triune God is alive and active in the cosmos and in the church.
For example, Paul prays “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him,” (Ephesians 1:17). He says, “For through him [Christ] we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.” (Ephesians 2:18). And, “In him [Christ] you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:22).
The One True God exists eternally as three persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And Ephesians reveals each Person dynamically engaged in redemption. Ephesians should inspire you to worship the Triune God, pray to the Triune God, trust in in the Triune God
Cosmic Christology
When Jesus came to earth, he humbled himself, he emptied himself, he suffered and died, as Paul articulates so powerfully in Philippians 2. But in Ephesians, we behold the risen Christ in cosmic perspective, exalted in glory.
According to Eph 1:9–10, the cosmic plan of God “for the fullness of time” is revealed and fulfilled in Christ, the one who unites all things, “things in heaven and things on earth.”
In Ephesians 1:20–21, Christ is exalted “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name.”
God’s eternal purpose has been accomplished in Christ (Eph 2:11).
And Ephesians 4:10 says, “He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.”
Ephesians reveals Christ and the cosmic implications of his work in stunning glory.
High Ecclesiology
Ephesians provides one of the grandest visions of the church. There are mind-blowing statements, like, “And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” (Ephesians 1:22–23). All things are under Christ, and the church is the body of Christ, so all things are under the church.
Or Ephesians 3:10: “Through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” So the church has cosmic significance.
In this brief letter, we see the church as God’s new humanity (Eph 2:11–18), the household of God (2:19), a living and holy temple, built into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit (2:20–22), and the bride of Christ (Eph 5:23–32).
Build your ecclesiology in Ephesians and you will love the church and eagerly participate in it.
Inaugurated Eschatology
Ephesians announces that glorious end-time realities have already begun with the resurrection and ascension of Christ, while looking forward to future fulfillment that has not yet happened. For example, in Ephesians 1, Paul says that God the Father “has [already] blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (v. 3), and yet the Holy Spirit “is the guarantee of our [future] inheritance until we acquire possession of it” (v. 14). In Ephesians 2:4–7, Paul speaks of believers as already seated with Christ in heavenly places, while adding that God will show us the riches of his grace in the coming ages. In Ephesians 4:22–24, Paul calls Christians to put on “the new self,” to live a new creation life, and yet he acknowledges the ongoing struggle with sin.
Ephesians will help you live more fully in the reality that Christ is already ruling and reigning while increasing your longing for the not yet.
And this is just some of the grace that God has for his church through the book of Ephesians.
Conclusion
Constantine Campbell captures all of these themes in his sweeping description of Ephesians:
“Adulation for the letter to the Ephesians can hardly be overstated. It is, in its own way, majestic, profound, exhilarating, and—if its message is taken seriously—nothing short of earth-shattering. Its scope is cosmic, addressing the whole of creation—including physical and spiritual realms—and eternal, addressing the mission of God before the foundation of the world through to its ultimate fulfilment in the age to come. It presents a cosmic Christ who is the central figure of the universe and the One through whom God is bringing all things together. He is supreme over all competing powers and yet operates intimately in the hearts and lives of human beings. God has caused a people to be raised from the dead with Christ and to be seated with him in the heavens, making him the reconciling centerpiece of God's plans for humanity and everything else. He is the head of his body, the church, which is now to live out its noble calling by the power of God in Christ. The presence of Christ pervades the full sweep of existence from the lofty reaches of the universe through to domestic household relationships. He dwells in and with his people, transforming them into a new creation and a new humanity, all to the praise and glory of God.”
There is a lot of noise competing for your attention, spam that drowns out that which is true and meaningful. If there is one message you tune into this year, pay attention to Ephesians. It is for you.