What job is important enough that you would go to prison for it? In Ephesians 3:1–6, Paul writes about his role as one who administers God’s grace in the church, prefacing it with the reminder that he is a prisoner.
Look at how God’s grace has come to you. Paul’s calling was to administer God’s grace. Various peple work together to make a home, a household work. Paul has just spoken of the household of God. In a large household there was need for an administrator. And some of that function, especially as it concerned the Gentiles, fell to Paul. “For this reason” looks back to Ephesians 2:19–22. It is not enough that your salvation was planned from eternity (as Paul has mentioned in Ephesians 1), or that you were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. It is not enough that Christ died and was raised for your salvation. That salvation needs to be applied to you. You need to stand, not outside Christ, but in Christ. That is the work of the Holy Spirit. But what tools, what means does the Spirit use? The ordinary means of grace, usually administered through the church.
Mark 11 tells us that after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, he went and looked around the temple. They synoptic Gospels all describe the cleansing of the temple which followed his entry. If he was concerned about the proper use of that temple, how much more the temple of which you are part, the temple Paul describes in Ephesians 2:19–22!
You are no longer aliens. Once you were a foreigner. Steve Baugh refers to a late second or early third century inscription in Ephesus, praising a Aurelius Barenus, who gave a multi-day banquet for the leaders of Ephesus and its 1,040 citizens. Citizenship was a rare privilege in Ephesus. The Gentile members of the church at Ephesus, and you were separated, not only from other believers, but from Christ. Your sins left you without God and without hope. Separation from God results in human separation. Sin brought disharmony to Eden. Lewis, in The Great Divorce, pictures hell as a constantly expanding city of mostly empty residences. By birth and nature we are all alienated from God’s people.
However, now you are a citizen. Christ has brought you near to God. His blood brought you near, verse 13. He reconciled you to God by the cross, verse 16. Now you are a citizen. The privileges which had been limited to Israel (by and large) now belong to us Gentiles! But your position is even better. You are part of God’s household. God has adopted you into his family. You belong there, with all of his people.
“The church is not an aggregate of diverse people, but individuals united to each other in their union with Jesus Christ…. Christ builds from living stones, sinners who are resistant material, difficult to shape, reluctant to fit with other living stones. Yet Christ continues to build — for he means to come himself, by his Spirit, to dwell among us as his house and temple (1 Cor. 3:16-17). He wants to be able to point to the church in the world and say: ‘See, that is what I can do. See my wisdom, power and love’ (cf. 3:10)!”
Sinclair B. Ferguson, Let’s Study Ephesians, p. 73
You are part of the house and household of God. You are built on the firm foundation. The apostles and prophets are foundational. Paul’s change of imagery helps unfold the reality he is describing. The coordinate offices of apostles and prophets were basic to the church, see 1 Corinthians 12:28. To be part of Christ’s church means building on the revelation and teaching of the apostles. Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone. This is not a mere decorative or ceremonial stone. This is the crucial block of the foundation, the one that determines the structure and orientation of the building. See Psalm 118:22 and Mark 12:10, where Christ quotes the Psalm, applying it to himself. You cannot be part of Christ’s church without having a relationship with Christ.
God has formed you into his house, a temple. Peter uses the term “living stones” to describe this. Paul talks about being built into a holy temple. God’s people are called into the body of Christ. The church is crucial. The sacraments, administered by the church, are not options to take or leave–they are things God uses to build you up, to draw you to himself. St. Cyprian of Carthage said in the third century, “You cannot have God for your Father unless you have the church for your Mother.” If the church is the bride of Christ, she is the mother of the faithful. Though the New Testament church cannot contain God any more than Solomon’s temple could, both are where God has chosen, where God has condescended to dwell. It is true that the Spirit lives in believers individually, but Paul here has in mind a corporate concept. The faithful, gathered from diverse backgrounds, by God’s grace pulled out of their death in sin, have become the house where God lives.
“[T]he spiritual unity of all who believe in Christ is indeed a present reality, but its fullest realization and the attainment of its highest degree lie in the future…. The fact remains that the church of God, far from being a tangled heap of wreckage, is even now God’s own perfectly proportioned temple, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ Himself as the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building is fitly framed together and all believers are built together for a habitation of God though the Spirit (Ephesians 2:20–22). God omniscient sees it thus. So does God’s child with the eye of faith.”
R. B. Kuiper, The Glorious Body of Christ, p. 48
Grasp that picture as you deal with those around you. Understand how important your sanctification is–because you are a holy temple. Self-consciously be what you are. You are the temple Christ cleansed, not with a whip, but with his lifeblood—poured out on the cross for you.
Rejoice, not just in the unity you have with one another, but above all in the reality in which that is based–the unity you have with your Savior, the fact that you have become God’s house!
We live in a sadly war-torn world. Ultimate resolution will come, not by treaties or manipulation, not by missiles, bombs, and drones, but, according to Ephesians 2:11–18, by Christ preaching peace.
Christ is your peace. He destroyed the dividing wall of hostility. Christ destroyed the barrier, the wall of hostility which separated Jews and Gentiles. God was teaching his people that they were different from their pagan neighbors. Christ abolished the law with its commandments and regulations. Paul is not teaching that the Ten Commandments are irrelevant to believers today. Rather, he seems to be thinking of the details of the ceremonial regulation that made it impossible for Jews to have fellowship with Gentiles, without becoming ceremonially unclean. The reason for those ceremonial regulations continues—God’s people are different from the world around them. Christ abolished this in his flesh. Paul has in mind the death of Christ on the cross, see “through the blood of Christ,” verse 13.
How are God’s work and your activity related in the matter of salvation? In Ephesians 2:8–10, Paul tells you that you are saved by grace through faith, but God’s purpose, as he works in you, is for you to do good works.
Your salvation is by grace through faith. God, not you, receives the credit for your salvation. Paul began this chapter on a negative note, describing us as being dead in sin, unable to initiate our salvation, being enemies of God, and walking in disobedience. That led to a focus on what God has done in raising us with Christ and seating us with him in the heavenlies. Now he repeats for emphasis, reminding you in verse 8 (as he did in verse 5) that it is by grace that you have been saved. Salvation means deliverance from the guilt, condemnation, and enslaving power of sin. Grace is God’s free, undeserved gift. If we were dead in sin, our salvation is indeed gracious. This time he adds that our salvation is by grace through faith. Faith is a gift of God (as we will see), but that does not mean that God believes for us. We are the ones who exercise faith. Faith is not passive–but at its heart it involves receiving and resting upon Jesus Christ alone for salvation, see the Westminster Confesion if Faith 14.2. Salvation is 100% God’s work. Faith is instrumental. We are saved through faith, not on the basis of faith.
We marvel at stories of someone who was at the brink of death and was brought back. In Epheisans 2:1–7, Paul tells you that something even more wonderful has happened to you, if you trust in Christ.
Remember that you were dead in sin. When you were dead, you lived in sin. Your natural state is one of death—not physically, but you are lifeless in your relationship with God, and as unable to initiate a correction of that as someone who is dead. The theological term we use to describe this is “total depravity.” When you were dead, you lived in transgression and sin. “Living in sin” is not limited to sexual immorality, but means living a life outside of the bounds of God’s will, contrary to God’s law. Paul’s language of “walking” in sin describes a life which, step by step, rebels against God, see Psalm 1. God is faithful to his covenant. But we, by nature, are covenant-breakers, rebels against God. Notice that Paul speaks not only of “you” in verse 1, but also of “all of us” in verse 3. None of us are off the hook. By nature we tend to lead misguided lives, following the ruler of the kingdom of the air (a description of Satan). There is no neutrality. You cannot simply ignore God. Total depravity does not mean absolute depravity. Not every unbeliever is a Stalin or an Adolph Hitler. Your total depravity is part of the problem of sin that affects you from birth and even before, Psalm 51:5. We come by sin naturally. The problem has a long history. It traces back to our first parents, to their first sin, the guilt of which is imputed to us, Romans 5:12, and the corruption of which permeates us. (Don’t forget that your salvation flows from the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to you.)
