Ephesians 1&2

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth."-Ephesians 1:3-10


I have been looking at this bit of scripture for some time now and the same questions always come to mind, "Why do people read this and believe that only the elect are eligible for salvation?" and, "What is it that we are missing about grace?". I will break this bit of scripture down and seek to explain my interpretation of the text to you. Here goes something ...


"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the earth."-Verse 3&4


     The thing about this text that always grabs everyones attention is the statement "even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the earth" which I must say is an odd statement and would definitely support the idea that believers were elected into salvation while others were not. But, I believe this is not what Paul was trying to communicate to the church of Ephesus, or anyone for that matter. Much of our thinking about statements with the words "elect' or "predestined" are usually seen through the blemished lens of the augustinian church. Obviously, his views of such text have been very influential. It took some 300 years before anyone in church history interpreted the New Testament to teach that salvation was for some and not all. 


"In keeping with the Jewish practice of his day, I think Paul was speaking of a corporate election in this passage. When Jews thought of election or predestination, they thought primarily of the nation of Israel. Israel as a nation was elected (not for salvation, but for service). But this didn’t mean that every individual born into Israel was part of God’s chosen people. Only those who kept covenant with God were considered “true Israelites.”"-Greg Boyd


The same principles of "keeping covenant" are what we see in our faith in Christ (Matt 24:13; 1 Corinthians 1:18; 15:2; 2 Corinthians 2:15; 2 Timothy 2:11-13). There is an expectation of a future justification that is seen in all of these text, it is what NT Wright calls "Justification by the faithfulness in the Messiah". On this topic of faithfulness Wright says, "one does not cancel out the other". In fact if you read verses 3 and 4 correctly I believe you get your answer without pulling in any ideas of God that are separate from His being. Is it shocking to us that God would choose us In Christ from the foundation of the Earth? I think we all believe that God is omniscient and could have foreseen the fall, and thus had a way to set things right. In fact in Genesis 3 when God judges the guilty parties he announces in verse 15 what is known as the "protoevangelium", this being the first mention of the Gospel of Christ ever. So, we can in fact rest assured that God had a way to put things back to right. How did he plan to accomplish all of this? That answer is pretty complex but ultimately that solution would be brought forth through the nation of Israel and by the Messiah, God's only son who was the propitiation for our sin. So when we read this text we are all left wondering "who? who did God elect?" That answer is found in Jesus. Much of scripture tells us that salvation is for all, but when we read passages such as this we tend to forget all of that and, instead, view God through the lens of the Augustinian, or Reformed, lens.


So why can we not read this and know that we were all chosen in Christ before the foundation of the Earth to be holy and blameless before Him? Personally, verses 7-10 seem to summarize everything that has been mention prior to it. 


"In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth."-verses 7-10


It seems to me that most will read this text and the phrase "according to His purpose" will jump out along with the prior statements referring to the elect and we will draw the conclusion that "God's purpose is that the elect will be saved because of Jesus". Actually, we are drawing the line in the sand and, to my understanding, we are preaching an incomplete gospel. The curious thing about the phrase "according to His purpose" is that it comes directly after the statement the "mystery of his will" but it is concluded in this text that this purpose was "set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth." 


So where do we go from here? Well, we start by looking at Jesus! God's purpose was fulfilled in Jesus! Greg Boyd says it best when he says:


"What God chose from the foundation of the world was that whoever is IN Christ will be holy & blameless."-Greg Boyd


There is one more thing I want to make mention of briefly before ending this blog and that is the statement in verse 7 that says "according to the riches of His grace". I am wrestling with the idea that we have misunderstood grace and that seems to be the big hang up for people caught in such a "debate". If we jumped forward to Ephesians 2:4-9 we read that: "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast."


All of these marvelous things like God's rich mercy, and His great love were all fulfilled in Jesus. The reason I believe that we are misunderstanding grace is because we read that "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." and we conclude that the only reason people believe is because of God's grace on the elect. Correct me if I am wrong but the text reads that "For by grace you have been saved THROUGH FAITH", phrases such as "and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works" is mentioned to correct the Jewish understanding of a righteousness by works as opposed to the new covenant "righteousness by faith" found only in Christ Jesus. So, Paul is saying "you are not saved because of your good deeds, or by your faithfulness to adhere to the laws of Moses but because you put your faith in Jesus".


So I ask, is faith the prerequisite for saving grace as compared to common grace?  I believe so. Faith in Christ is the foundation for everything in the New Testament. But, its because of the grace extended to us by God through Jesus that any of us have hope for salvation. And, if any Reformed theologians read this I would be interested to hear how all of this parallels to Calvin's I in the acronym "Tulip" that states that grace is irresistible. How can that possibly be so?