Under the Canopy of Heaven 5. Heaven and Ephesians Alive@5 19.8.18
Introduction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pDviXhewDU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpBITX_tLXM
As someone who as a young person suffered from a deep sense of lostness and depression the teaching of Ephesians has spoken to me profoundly. I can remember sitting in the balcony of a Baptist church in Adelaide in 1975 listening to a series on “The Plan of God for Unity”.
That God has a plan may sometimes be doubted but its eternal existence and universality is essential to human wholeness of mind (Acts 3:19-21; 1 Cor 2:7; Eph 1:3-14; 3:1-11; Col 1:26; 2 Tim 1:9; Rev 10:1-7). To grasp this we must understand that revelation of the plan comes only in Christ, not through Adam.
Central to the initial talk was Ephesians 1:9-10, “making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” The dimensions of the drama of an eternal plan encompassing all creation captured my imagination and has never left me. From its beginning the exalted Christology of Ephesians makes Jesus the centrepiece of cosmic restoration. The solution to the ancient problem of how a broken world like ours can be united with a perfect heavenly sphere is found exclusively in the person of Christ who “fills everything in every way” (1:23).
Created for God’s glory there is a longing in the human heart that can only be filled in Christ. The Old Testament writer of Ecclesiastes struggles with how everything fits together, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” (Eccl 3:11). Greek philosophers pondered how an ideal world beyond space-time as we know it and our time bound and decaying world could come together? Gnostics, Manicheans and all the Eastern religions spun solutions to this problem, generally in a way which denied the enduring status of material things. Or, various materialist philosophers, like Marxism, scorned a heavenly sphere altogether.
Ephesians is not a treatise outlining in propositional form God’s purposes, but a drama that expounds how the plan comes into being through the victory of Jesus over all the powers which resist its fulfilment.
As in the entire New Testament, the weakness and seeming defeat of the cross is the pivot of the victory of God (1:7; 2:13, 16). All things are being re-unified through the blood of the cross (1:7 cf. Col 1:20).
The Plan
Ephesians opens on this note of triumph, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing gin the heavenly places” (1:3).
The benediction, “Blessed be the God…” (1:3) echoes the conclusion of Psalm 68 (v.35), an ode to the victory and enthronement of Israel’s king triumphant over all the Lord’s enemies. The blessings in which we share in Christ are the blessings the Father has given to the victorious Son. The theme of divine warfare runs through Ephesians, on a cosmic scale.
This blessing establishes from the very beginning of the letter the importance of the location of Jesus. God has “he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places” (1:20). He “is the one who …ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.” (4:10). He can enact the plan because heaven represents the site of his accomplished triumph. Heaven and earth are even now being reconnected under his headship (1:10f, 22f; 4:10).
This is huge theme in the NT, which is why Ps 110:1 is its most quoted OT text e.g. Matthew 22:44; Mark 12:36; Luke 20:42–43; Acts 2:34–35; Heb 1:13. Cf. 1 Cor 15:25; Heb 10:13.
The goal of the heavenly Jesus is to rule over and fill all things for the glory of the Father (1:14; 3:21). Since the Father is the one God who created “all things” (3:9) it is the Son who restore harmony to everything in heaven and earth. The expression “all things” (1:10, 22; 3:9; 4:10) is a Hebraic way of talking about the entire created order/universe. In Jesus every element of division, contradiction and alienation within creation has been taken away; nullifying all opposition to the purposes of God. Whilst this reality is presently largely invisible its primary sign is the inclusion of the Gentiles in God’s household. Once alienated from God’s people (2:12) we have now been brought near by the blood of Christ (2:13) in whom the dividing wall of hostility has been removed (2:14). In Christ we are all members of the same family of God (2:19) and a temple in which God himself lives by the Spirit (2:21-22).
At one level this is all quite straightforward, but Ephesians unique emphasis that the blessings we enjoy “in Christ” are “in the heavenly places” (1:3) requires some explanation.
This has often been expressed in terms of our “position in Christ”, perhaps set in contrast with our spiritual condition. Such language however isn’t immediately relational or expressive of the richness of the believer’s union with Christ. To have revelation of our union with Christ in heaven is a real experience and not exclusively an objective fact to be believed.
What it means to be “raised up with him” and “seated …with him…in the heavenly places” (2:6) is clarified by the regal language drawn from Psalm 8 (v.6) which Paul applies to Jesus in chapter one. God “raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church” (1:20-22). In sharing in Jesus’ heavenly position we have been granted dominion over all powers which resist his Lordship. Who are these powers and why do they resist the unity of God?
Psalm 8 picks up the “dominion” language of Genesis 1:26-28 where to be created in the image of God is to rule over all things. The psalm can be interpreted messianically and this is how it is used in Hebrews 2:6-9. Jesus has triumphed where Adam was deceived and defeated by the devil. All of the Psalms of conflict and victory apply ultimately to the cosmic triumph of Christ (Pss. 18; 20; 22; 44; 60; 118 cf. Isa 53:12).
Spiritual Conflict
Unity is the essential nature of all things for the one God created all (3:9) and in the End everything in heaven and earth will be united in Christ (1:10 cf. Col 1:20). Since Paul labours “one Spirit…one Lord…one God and Father” (4:4-6) to emphasise that division and disintegration cannot be traced back to the Godhead (God’s unity is his glory cf. John 17:22. This excludes polytheism, dualism, monism etc.). Disunity proceeds from hostile supernatural powers operating in the heavenly places.
According to missiologist Paul Hiebert Western Christians often suffer from an inability to grasp this way of seeing the cosmos. They tend to conceptualise only two worlds, the seen world measurable to science and the unseen transcendent world of heaven. Many non-Westerners recognize the “middle world”, comprised of unseen powers (magical forces, evil eye, mana) and evil spirits that are very much a part of everyday human life (e.g., a person is ill because of a curse or a spirit attack). This worldview is closer to that of the Bible than our own.
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (6:12). These powers are presently being subdued under the authority of Jesus (1 Cor 15:25ff.) and in him we are called to resist them. Whilst it is notoriously ensnaring to speculate about these powers there are clues in Ephesians about the nature of spiritual warfare.
“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves (the devils) are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.” (C.S. Lewis)
Having expounded the purposes of God in raising believers into the heavenly places and uniting Jew and Gentile as a temple in the Spirit (2:1-22) Paul introduces his prayer, “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named” (Eph 3:14-15).
In biblical thinking “name” designates what something truly is. In his universal Fatherhood (3:9) God imparts to all conscious beings their essential nature by creating, preserving and redeeming them in Christ. The families of the nations (Ps 22:27; 96:7) find their true identity in knowing God’s triumph in Christ which releases them from the useless “gods” and idols they serve (Ps 96:4-5). For behind idols are demonic powers (Deut 32:17).
The “families of the earth” (Gen 12:3; 28:14 cf. Acts 3:25) are called to receive the blessings of God’s covenant with Abraham realised in Christ. Presently however they are “following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—” (2:2). This language recalls how Jesus spoke of Satan as, “the prince/ruler of this world” (John 12:31).
The families “in heaven” are most likely the angelic families in the invisible realm, for in the Old Testament angels are called “sons of God”, and Satan himself can appear among them (Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7). Whilst a matter of dispute, “the sons of God” in Genesis 6:2, 4 are also best understood as evil supernatural powers. In the thought world of the Old Testament it seems that the government of God was to be manifested through angelic powers which were placed over the people groups of the world, “When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.” (Deut 32:8).
The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Greek version of the OT read “the number of the sons/angels of God.” The (later) Hebrew Text reads “the number of the sons of Israel”. The Jewish scribes would be naturally inclined to this rendering of the text. That God has a heavenly council comprised of angelic beings to effect his decisions on earth is a characteristic part of the Old Testament worldview (Ps 89:5-7).
By the time we reach the book of Daniel we find that the nations seem to be ruled by evil “princes” engaged in conflict with the holy angels of God (Dan 10:13, 20-21). If the devil could be called by Jesus a “father” (John 8:44) who has “sons/children” amongst human beings (Matt 13:38; 1 John 3:10), the evil powers in the heavenly realms are sons who have rebelled against their true Father. The separation of these sons from their Father-Creator has spilled down from the heavenly places to corrupt the relationship between God and his human children on earth (Luke 3:34; Acts 17:28).
It is demonic power behind all the false worship of Gentile peoples. “They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded.” (Deut 32:17). “No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons.” (1 Cor 10:20).
If the conflict between the supernatural forces of evil in the heavenly places and the realisation plan of God is a struggle over the nature and authenticity of F/fatherhood only the true Son can fully reveal the Father (John 10:30; 14:6, 9).
The language of Ephesians about sonship is very polarised; those in Christ share in adoption, love and light (1:5; 5:1, 8) those who do not believe are in disobedience and under wrath (2:2-3; 5:6).
The Ministry of Jesus
The whole of Ephesians is written from a position of triumph. Its dominant post ascension perspective comes out powerfully in chapter 4 (cf. 1:3), where Paul is applying Psalm 68:18, “Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” 9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? 10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)” (4:8-10).
This recalls the exhortations to Adam and Eve to, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion” (Gen 1:28). Filling language bears witness to the progress of God’s plan under his fatherly blessing (e.g. Gen 9:1,7; 16:10; 17:2 47:27; Ex 1:7 etc; Acts 9:31; 12:24).
The background in Psalm 68 is revelatory. This psalm recounts the ascent of a victorious Israelite king up to the temple on Mt Zion with his enemies trailing behind him. This scene of wild exultation (68:2-4; 24-27) is marked by the abiding presence of God in his sanctuary (16-18, 29-30). Ephesians prophetically interprets the psalm as the triumphant procession of the exalted Christ through all the zones of heaven, whose powers he has subjugated, to sit with his Father in heaven on his glorious throne. Where the earthly king took a host of human “captives” (v.18) the “captives” of Jesus are the demonic powers. The cross and resurrection has stripped them of all authority and they are being led by the triumphal procession of the heavenly Christ. With their power shattered they can no longer separate the holy God in heaven from sinners on earth. This is most clear in Colossians, “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.” (2:15 cf. Ps 110:5-6). In the psalm the victory of the king brings a revelation that God is “Father of the fatherless” (Ps 68:5), in Ephesians it brings the revelation he is the Father of Jew and Gentile alike. This is the gospel whose impact Paul saw could break into the history of all nations (Rom 16:26; 1 Tim 3:16).
Old Testament texts relating to the dramatic victory of God include Ex 15:1-18; Pss. 2; 29; 68:12-24; 110. In various order they contain a description of a conflict with “gods” that oppose the Lordship of Yahweh, a theophany or manifestation of divine power, a note of victory, a procession to kingship, house-building (the temple), celebration and blessing. All these themes are prominent in Ephesians in terms of the victory of Christ, the building of the Church as God’s dwelling place and the blessing of his people.
Amazingly, Jesus is presently working to fill the universe with the fullness of God completed in himself, through the Church (1:23).
Contesting the Glory of the Father
God’s plan revealed in Christ has created one community, one body, with one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism under one God.
In scripture the Jew-Gentile separation was created by the Lord himself by his election of Abraham and his seed. Paul stresses the unity of Jew and Gentile as the primary sign of the success of the plan of God in reunifying all things. Christ has created “in himself one new man in the place of the two” (2:15). The overcoming of the separation in Jesus e.g. Gal 3 is a sign that God has restored all things in him. Jew and Gentile now share a common Father and God, “For through him (Christ) we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.” (2:15).
Under the “Father of glory….who is over all and through all and in all” (1:17; 4:6) the Church lives as a community drawn from all nations making God’s plan in Christ known to rebellious heavenly powers. Ministry in “the unsearchable riches of Christ” is “to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, 10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (3:8-10).
The Greek for “manifold” wisdom is linguistically related to Joseph’s coat of many colours (Gen 37:3, 23 Greek Old Testament) and highlights the depth and profundity of God’s wisdom. No created being could figure out the manner of this plan in Christ; “one can only stand back and marvel at its extraordinary design” (Arnold).
The very existence of the Church is a testimony that the great fatherly plan for the unity of all things in Christ has been secured. God’s previously hidden wisdom that he would triumph through the weakness of the cross has now been publically made known through the preaching of the gospel and the creation of a new and all inclusive people.
This revelation is something that is happening “now” because the existence of the Church is a prophetic statement of the coming new creation. Paul is not calling on Christians to preach to or rebuke the powers. They simply have to “be Church”.
The living, loving unity of the Church displays the victory of God and exposes the evil rulers in the heavenlies as fatherless and familyless. Their cosmic deceptions have been exposed (John 8:44; Rev 12:9; 20:3; 10) and their future condemnation is revealed. As the Church lives under the harmonious loving rule of God it images to all creation the order to come. She is called to be a sign of the restoration and transformation of all the structures of culture and life (Acts 3:21). The Church is God’s public exponent of love, unity and justice to all political and social spheres.
Jesus taught us to pray, “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:9). Kingdom of God thinking excludes any private religious domain. In the End all spheres of created existence will be filled with the love of God through the whole family of God (1:4; 2:4; 3:17-19; 4:15-16; 5:2)
Church and Ministry
This task is particularly dependent on the gifts Christ gives to his Body. ““When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men….And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ)” (4:8, 11-13). By sharing in the unity of God through a diversity of gifts Christ’s Body grows towards being as complete as he is (cf. Col 2:9-10).
It is important to note that the exhortations about spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6 are all in the plural. It is the Christian community/family which is engaged in this conflict.
Through us the victorious heavenly life of Christ (cf. Pss. 47; 68) is to gain expression in all the structures of human existence. The Spirit filled worship (5:18-20) of the people of God participates in the celebrations of the heavenly throngs and moves the people of God towards their call to fill all things in Christ (1:23 cf. 1 Cor 11:10; Col 1:12); the marriages of Christians share in the love of the exulted Lord and the submission of his Bride on earth and are a sign that marital bliss will fill the universe forever (Eph 5:22-32), slaves and masters are to note, “he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven” (6:9) and so on. The Church exists in the sphere of the heavenly places (3:10) where the Christian should remain located by faith and obedience.
None of this happens quietly as God’s great plan is fiercely resisted by the powers of evil. After his defeat at Calvary and the ascension of Jesus into heaven, “the devil has come down to you (those on earth) in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”” (Rev 12:12). Dark forces are watching our assemblies continually seeking to frustrate the displays of the manifold wisdom of God and to deny the loving Fatherhood which originally created them (3:10, 14). At war against “the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (6:12)we must “Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.” (6:11). The “armour of God” is the armour of the divine Warrior himself; with “faithfulness the belt of his loins…. He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head” (Isa 11:5; 59:17). These are the attributes of God in Christ in whose victory over the forces of evil we share and whose gospel we proclaim.
Conclusion
Paul’s grand vision of God’s plan to unite heaven and earth in Christ (1:10 cf. Hab 2:14) brings an invitation to share in Christ’s victory over the powers of darkness. In an ever expanding Spirit-directed movement the Church is called to fill all things with the fullness she has in Jesus (1:23; 4:10 cf. 4:18ff; 2:22). In a conflict which is ultimately about fatherhood (1:20ff; 3:13; 6:12ff.) the forces which hold lost people in complete captivity (2:1-3) can only be conquered by living out the shape of the life of Christ. This is at the heart of Paul’s admonition, “I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.” (3:13), he is bringing the Church into the glory of heavenly things.
Only by sharing in “the same conflict” in which Paul was engaged can we share in the triumph of Christ which he spoke of and manifested so powerfully in his life and ministry (Phil 1:29-30; Col 1:24 etc.).
The pattern of divine victory established throughout the whole Bible involves a breaking at the hands of God before a breakthrough.
Many of the Psalms of victory were written at a time when defeat seemed to be the lot of Israel (Pss. 18; 20; 22; 44; 60; 118 cf. Isa 53:12). This defeat is always attributed to the Lord’s disciplining hand against sin amongst the people. Cf. “Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ 18 You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 19 And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish.” (Deut 8:17-20).
Until the Lord has brought us low we cannot see into the things which are “far above” (1:21) where Christ is in the heavenlies and our tremendously exalted status in him. Understanding that being brought low is the way of God should lift us out of our present discouragements concerning the depressed state of the Church and move us to pray bold prayers for a manifestation of the victory of Christ.