“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.” (Ephesians 1:3-14)
In May 1844, a young biblical scholar found himself in St Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai. Constanin Von Tischendorf wrote in his diary,
“In visiting the library of the monastery, I perceived in the middle of the great hall a large and wide basket full of old parchments; and the librarian, who was a man of information, told me that two heaps of papers like these, moldered by time, had been already committed to the flames. What was my surprise to find amid this heap of papers a considerable number of sheets of a copy of the Old Testament in Greek, which seemed to me to be one of the most ancient that I had ever seen. The authorities of the convent allowed me to possess myself of a third of these parchments, or about forty-three sheets, all the more readily as they were destined for the fire. But I could not get them to yield up possession of the remainder. The too lively satisfaction which I had displayed had aroused their suspicions as to the value of this manuscript… On my return to Saxony there were men of learning who at once appreciated the value of the treasure which I brought back with me. I did not divulge the name of the place where I had found it, in the hopes of returning and recovering the rest of the manuscript.”
Tischendorf had been warming his hands over a fire, consuming pages from the oldest manuscript of the Bible so far discovered. He later returned eager to save more pages but the monks had already sent the rest back to Russia where they remained until after the Communist Revolution. In 1933, the Russian government, having no use for old copies of the Bible, agreed to sell the Codex Sinaiticus to Great Britain for £100,000. At the time it was one of the highest prices ever paid for a book. Hidden treasure. The term fills us with images of gold and diamonds. What do you treasure most? Your house? Your car? A family heirloom? Or your Bible, God’s word? Or your relationship with God? I recently counselled a lady struggling to pray. Was God listening? Did he answer prayer? She asked. I explained that prayer is a conversation, a two-way conversation. First, God speaks through the scriptures and we listen. Then we respond in prayer and action as God works in and through us. I encouraged her to read the Bible every day, allow God to speak to her, and to respond in prayer. As we begin a new year, how appropriate that we return to basics and from our Epistle reading, learn about prayer. Ephesians 1 answers three questions. Who we pray to, why we pray and what we pray for. Today we will just explore verses 3-14, and reflect on who we pray to.
In the original Greek these twelve verses constitute a single complex sentence. As Paul dictates, his speech pours out of his mouth in a continuous cascade. He neither pauses for breath, nor punctuates his words with full stops. Commentators have searched for metaphors vivid enough to convey the impact of this opening paragraph. ‘We enter this epistle through a magnificent gateway’. It is ‘a golden chain’ of many links,2 ‘a kaleidoscope of dazzling lights and shifting colours’, ‘a snowball tumbling down a hill, picking up volume as it descends’,4 ‘This rhapsodic adoration is comparable to the overture of an opera which contains the successive melodies that are to follow’.6 A gateway, a golden chain, a kaleidoscope, a snowball, an operatic overture: all these metaphors in their different ways describe the impression of colour, movement and grandeur. The whole paragraph is a doxology, or indeed a ‘eulogy’, for that is the word Paul uses. He begins by blessing God for blessing us with every conceivable blessing. As we shall see, he also makes a deliberate reference to the Trinity.
1. We Pray to God the Father
First, God the Father is the source or origin of every blessing which we enjoy. His initiative is set forth plainly, for he is himself the subject of almost every main verb in these verses. It is he who ‘has blessed us’ (verse 3), who ‘chose us’ (verse 4) and ‘destined us … to be his sons’ (verse 5), who ‘freely bestowed on us’ his grace (verse 6, literally ‘graced us with his grace’), indeed ‘lavished’ his grace upon us (verse 8), who also ‘made known to us’ his will and purpose which he ‘set forth in Christ … to unite all things’ (verses 9–10). Further, he ‘accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will’ (verse 11). Turning from the verbs to the nouns, Paul refers to God’s love and grace, to his will, his purpose and his plan. The whole paragraph is full of God the Father who has set his love and poured his grace upon us, and who is working out his eternal plan through us. We Pray to God the Father.
2. We Pray in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ
Secondly, the sphere within which the divine blessing is bestowed and received is the Lord Jesus Christ. In the first fourteen verses of the Ephesian letter Jesus Christ is mentioned either by name or title (‘Christ’, ‘Jesus Christ’, ‘Christ Jesus’, ‘the Lord Jesus Christ’, ‘the Beloved’) or by pronoun or possessive (‘he’, ‘him’, ‘his’) no fewer than fifteen times. And the phrase ‘in Christ’ or ‘in him’ occurs eleven times. Already in the first verse the apostle has described Christians as ‘saints’ and ‘believers’ who are ‘in Christ Jesus’. Now in the rest of the paragraph he draws out the implications of this pregnant expression which denotes the basis of our relationship with God. Formerly we were ‘in Adam’, belonging to the old fallen humanity; now we are ‘in Christ’, belonging to the new redeemed humanity. It is ‘in Christ’ that God has blessed us in time and chosen us in eternity (verses 3–4). It is ‘in the Beloved’ that he has bestowed on us his grace, so that ‘in him’ we have redemption or forgiveness (verses 6–7).
It is ‘in him’ that the first Jewish believers became God’s people (verses 11–12) and ‘in him’ also that Gentile believers were sealed as belonging to God (verses 13–14). It is also ‘in Christ’ that God has set forth his plan to unite all things ‘in him’ or under his headship (verses 9–10).
So first, we pray to God the Father, and second, we pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
3. We Pray in the Power of the Holy Spirit
Although in this paragraph the Holy Spirit is mentioned by name only in verses 13 and 14, his activity is assumed throughout, and his varied work is described in later chapters. What Paul stresses here is that the blessings God gives us in Christ are spiritual, not material.
The indwelling Holy Spirit gives us assurance that we are adopted children of God, the assurance of sins forgiven and the assurance of eternal life. God’s will is written in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. His power enables us to resist temptation and transforms us progressively to become more and more like Christ. The teaching of these verses on the nature of God is extremely important. Christians are Trinitarians. We believe in one God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We affirm with gratitude and joy that God has blessed us (eulogēsas, an aorist tense) in Christ with every spiritual blessing. That is, every blessing of the Holy Spirit has been given us by the Father if we are in the Son. No blessing has been withheld. Of course, we still have to grow into maturity in Christ, and be transformed into his image, and explore the riches of our inheritance in him. Of course, too, God may grant us many deeper and richer experiences of himself on the way. Nevertheless, from the moment we trust in Jesus, already, every spiritual blessing is ours.
This is to whom we pray. To God the Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. The rest of Ephesians 1 goes on to explain why we pray and what we are to pray for. Before we criticize the monks of St Catherine’s Monastery for burning what was then probably the oldest bible manuscript in existence, the most valuable book in the world, just to keep warm, let us reflect on how we treat God’s unique revelation in scripture. Do we daily, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest its truth? Or does it lie unopened, gathering dust on a shelf? This week we begin a New Year. May it also be a new beginning in our relationship with God. To deepen that relationship we have discovered afresh that we pray to God our Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
With grateful thanks to John Stott and Warren Wiersbe for their commentaries on Ephesians, from which much inspiration and content derived.