A Taste of Things to Come: The Church in Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians

Recently, I wrote a paper for my New Testament Theology class. The assignment was to trace a theme in one of Paul’s letters. I chose to write about Paul’s teaching about the church in the book of Ephesians. It is titled, “A Taste of Things to Come: The Church in Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians.” I posted it in parts, so as to make it easier to read in this format. It is an academic paper, not a sermon, so it might have some technical terms in it, although I think it should be fairly readable. If you have any questions, let me know.

• Introduction and Background to Ephesians
• The Context of the Church: Cosmic Unity
• The Composition of the Church: Racial Unity
• The Calling of the Church: Dynamic Unity
• The Conduct of the Church: Practical Unity
• Implications for the Church Today

A Taste of Things to Come (Part 6): Implications for the Church Today

What would it mean for Christians today to take seriously what Ephesians teaches about the church?

At the most basic level, it would mean giving the church a central place in our thinking and life. For many American Protestants especially, there is a tendency to think of the church as a secondary feature of Christianity. We think the main thing in Christianity is personal salvation and growth. The church is at best sort of a helpful addition to assist this, providing means to personal salvation and growth. Ephesians shatters this small vision, placing the church in an essential place in the plan of cosmic redemption. A solid “theology of redemption should inevitably lead to a vibrant ecclesiology in so far as the essence of this redemption consists in the move away from the alienation…towards personal reunification in Christ with God and neighbour.”[1] The church is not an optional, secondary, or merely helpful institution. It is absolutely fundamental to God’s plan for bringing reconciliation to the world, both in heaven and on earth.

Furthermore, if we take Ephesians seriously, our view of the church will take on a much larger scope. If the church is “God’s pilot scheme for the reconciled universe of the future,”[2] then it is inappropriate to reduce it to an arena of personal devotion or even merely a spiritual support network. It is the place where God’s redemptive plan for all of creation is first enacted. This means the church must concern itself with all of life, from economics to politics to social issues. Our worship, community, and growth are all contributing to God’s display of his multi-faceted wisdom before the world and the spiritual forces. We dare not reduce this to mere private piety. The church does impact the world by making nice, “spiritual” people, but by radically re-orienting all the structures of life. Christ’s eschatological reconciliation will impact all of society, every realm of creation and human culture, transforming every institution. The church is the vanguard community for experiencing this transformation. If we fail to focus on the whole scope of human life, opting for an internal or merely ethical spirituality, we will fail to live out our identity in Christ.

Taking Ephesians’ teaching on the church seriously also means the direct confrontation of racism and the pursuit of practical unity. North American churches have grown content with congregational hegemony. The well-known quote is unfortunately accurate: the most racially divided hour of the week is on Sunday morning. According to Paul in Ephesians, this is an affront to the gospel because it denies the cosmic reconciling power of Christ. Bruce Fong says, “What Jesus initiated in the Church demands that there be visible unity regardless of race, language or culture.”[3] While it is not clear what this will look like in today’s context, it does mean we need to start having difficult and honest conversations with churches that are different from us, both down the street and around the world.

Even where race is not a factor, practical unity among Christians is a non-negotiable. From individual Christians to local churches to ministry organizations to denominations, Christians must promote tangible oneness. This includes the pursuit of forgiveness between divided Christians, tangible forms of cooperation in ministry, and participating in shared corporate worship across dividing lines. We must remember that in the end, all churches and Christians will be completely united in Christ. That is the inevitable result of Christ’s reconciling work. That means that right now, being one with our brothers and sisters should be a paramount concern. It is our responsibility as Christ’s people to pursue real, visible unity. To not do so “would be completely inconsistent with being God’s masterpiece of reconciliation and ultimately with his purposes of summing up everything as a totality in Christ.”[4]

The church is God’s new creation, foreshadowing the coming re-creation of the whole world. Let us live out the cosmic reconciling power of Christ so that angels, demons, and people all races will marvel at God’s magnificent wisdom and praise his glorious grace.

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[1] Turner, “Unity,” 162.

[2] F. F. Bruce, quoted in O’Brien, Ephesians, 63.

[3] Fong, “Racial,” 572.

[4] O’Brien, Ephesians, 64.

A Taste of Things to Come (Part 5): Conduct of the Church in Ephesians

Conduct of the Church: Practical Unity (4:17-6:9)

Starting in 4:17, Paul launches into specific instructions on how the church should conduct itself, emphasizing the concrete, practical practice of unity. Throughout this section, Paul’s underlying logic remains firmly fixed to God’s unifying and reconciling purposes in Christ. He is calling “readers to live in a way that corporately expresses the cosmic unity God has inaugurated”[1] by renouncing “the old-creation patterns of alienated and alienating behavior”[2] His exhortations are aimed at things “which cause dissension and alienation within the body, that is, they are sins which work against the body’s unity.”[3] By targeting anger, brawling, unwholesome talk, sexual immorality, and drunkenness, he attacks sins that damage healthy community life. Likewise, he encourages behaviors that build up unity in Christ, such as forgiveness, corporate singing, compassion, and mutual submission. The communal logic of Paul’s instructions can be seen clearly when he condemns lying. He says “each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor.” This is not just a detached moral command. Rather, it is the natural outcome of believing that “we are all members of one body.”[4] If we belong to each other, then there is no reason to deceive each other.[5] This is an ethic rooted in our fundamental identity as people in community because of Christ.

All relationships are transformed in the context of the church, the arena of God’s redemption in Christ. This carries over into every relationship with a fellow believer, including the relationship between slaves and masters,[6] children and parents,[7] and husbands and wives.[8] These relationships all become tangible expressions of the eschatological cosmic reconciliation in Christ that the church experiences. Paul unpacks the marriage relationship most completely, connecting it directly to the redeeming work of Christ for his church by comparing the husband to Christ and the wife to the church. Marriage no longer exists in a vacuum, but instead becomes “a pledge of God’s purposes for the unity of the cosmos.”[9] Furthermore, by connecting Christ’s love for the church with God’s original picture of marriage in Eden,[10] we see that marriage is a specific arena where God’s new creation is exemplified.[11] The unity of the church which foreshadows the unity of all creation in Christ works its way into the unity of specific husbands and wives. Andreas Kostenberger explains:

“Marriage is not an end in itself; it is part of a life under God in the church and in the world. Marriage is a relationship in the process of restoration. To the extent that a married couple sees itself as part of the global eschatological movement toward ‘summing up all things in Christ’ (Eph 1:9), it will experience fulfillment and share the perspective on marriage Paul presents in the passage at hand.”[12]

Marriage is the most vivid example of this, but the same is true of all our interactions with fellow Christians. All our specific relationships are to be transformed in light of our participation in the church, the community that experiences now the eschatological cosmic reconciliation in Christ. One day God will sum up all things in Christ, and for the church that reality should begin filtering down into our specific, everyday relationships.

For all his emphasis on the cosmic, universal nature of church in Ephesians, Paul does not dodge the issue of concrete life in a local community of Christians. Paul does not want us to simply love other Christians with a vague or general sense of “oneness.” Merely having a pleasant feeling of “unity” is not enough. Paul will not let us neglect the more difficult and less inspiring work of specific relationships with a brother or sister who has a name, a history, real sin, and actual problems. How does the church display the cosmic reconciliation wrought by Christ? Through the nitty-gritty of seeking unity with our fellow Christians.

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[1] Ibid., 148.

[2] Ibid., 190.

[3] O’Brien, Ephesians, 64-65.

[4] Eph 5:25

[5] Interestingly, not lying is part of the eschatological promises of the OT. cf. Zech 8:16.

[6] Eph 6:5-9

[7] Eph 6:1-4

[8] Eph 5:22-33

[9] O’Brien, Ephesians, 55.

[10] Eph 5:31

[11] Turner, “Unity,” 156.

[12] Andreas J. Kostenberger, “The Mystery of Christ and the Church: Head and Body, ‘One Flesh’,” Trinity Journal 12NS (1991): 93.

A Taste of Things to Come (Part 4): Calling of the Church in Ephesians

Calling of the Church: Dynamic Unity (4:1-16)

Because, in the divine economy, the church bears the special privilege of experiencing Christ’s cosmic reconciliation ahead of time, it also has a high calling which it must live up to, the call to unity. The foundation of this unity is the oneness of the blessings given to the church:

“There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called—one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”^[1]

Because of the unity of God and his gifts, the church must be one. Division is foreign to its nature and a contradiction of what God has called it to be. This unity is not a human accomplishment, but founded on the work of the triune God.

Paul is clear that this unity is not the result of uniformity, but harmonious diversity. God has given the whole church one Spirit, one hope, one faith, and so on, but he has given a plurality of gifts to the individuals that make up the church. “To each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”[2] Primary among these diverse gifts are apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers.[3] In the body of Christ, they “function as ligaments, providing connections between the various parts.”[4] These specific roles have been given to the church to “to prepare God’s people for works of service.”^[5] Everyone in the church has been given gifts by God that must be coordinated and used for the benefit of the whole church. Each part must do its work.[6]

It is likewise clear that the church’s unity is not a static reality, but a dynamic one. The church is constantly growing, being “built up, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”^[7] The church is pictured as a developing organism, “not a dead, unapproachable, mighty or rich body, but is Christ’s living and growing body.”[8] The church is a developing reality whose unity will one day be fully experienced. This is part of the tension between the church’s present experience of reconciliation in Christ, and the coming fullness of the still future cosmic redemption. At that time the body will reflect truly the image of its Head, Christ.

This dynamic, diverse unity of the church is not merely a side effect of Christ’s work. It is, as Max Turner explains, “not simply a matter of pragmatism…unity in love is the distinguishing mark of the new humanity over against the alienated world doomed to pass away.”[9] The unity of the church is at the heart of the gospel and a sign of the efficacy of Christ’s reconciling work.

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[1] Eph 4:4-6

[2] Eph 4:7

[3] Eph 4:11

[4] Lincoln and Wedderburn, Theology, 98-99.

[5] Eph 4:12

[6] Eph 4:16

[7] Eph 4:12-13

[8] Barth, “Wall,” 110.

[9] Turner ,“Unity,” 151.

A Taste of Things to Come (Part 3): Composition of the Church in Ephesians

Composition of the Church: Racial Unity (2:11-3:13)

In Ephesians, the foremost result of the church’s experience of the cosmic reconciliation in Christ is the radical transformation of the relationship between Jews and Gentiles. In 2:11-12, Paul discusses the status of the Gentiles before encountering Christ. Prior to Christ’s reconciling work, Gentiles were alienated from Israel. Using the law, circumcision, and other cultural markers, the Jews engaged in what Tet-Lim N. Yee calls, “covenantal ethnocentrism,” keeping themselves racially and religious separate from Gentiles.[1] Because of this isolation from Israel, the Gentiles were “separate from Christ” and “without hope and without God in the world.”[2] However, because of Jesus’ reconciling work, the Gentiles can now be “brought near through the blood of Christ.”[3] Not only does Christ’s work unite people with God, it also unites people with each other, breaking down racial and cultural boundaries. Christ’s “purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.”[4] This corporate “new man” is a part of Christ’s new creation, a restoration of the original unity of all people before sin. It is not merely a mixture of Jews and Gentiles, but a new “third entity” in which “the previous ethnic and religious categories have been transcended.”[5] This is not to say that people loose their ethnic identity in Christ. Instead they are united “without destroying what they possessed culturally, racially or linguistically.”[6] Gentiles are still Gentiles. Jews are still Jews. However, as the church models “the beginning of cosmic re-unification,”[7] Gentiles can “shed the stigma of being foreigners and aliens.”[8] The church is a community more fundamental than ethnic and cultural distinctions.

In 2:19-22, Paul makes the remarkable statement that this united group of Jews and Gentiles together make up God’s eschatological temple. They are being:

“Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”

Here is a startling way that the church is a foretaste of the ultimate reconciliation of the cosmos in Christ. God’s dwelling is no longer exclusively among the Jews, isolated to the temple in Israel where access is denied to people lacking the ethnic markers of circumcision and Torah. Instead, God lives among the racially mixed community he has created. Paul is acutely aware of the radical nature of this claim because he has been arrested for bringing Greek Christians into the Jerusalem temple.^[9] It was truly bold to claim that a group that included Gentiles could be “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”[10] But, for Paul this was fundamental to the gospel. Christ’s reconciling work necessarily resulted in the creation of the church, a united, yet ethnically diverse people. That the “the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel”^[11] was a concrete display of God’s grace and “the fulfillment of the eschatological hope in its widest and most generous expression.”^[12]

In 3:10-11, Paul makes it clear that the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles in the church also plays a crucial role in God’s plan to deal with the spiritual forces in the heavenly realm. The fact that earthly divisions are being transcended by Christ’s work is a sign to heavenly forces that Christ’s work will also bring them into subjugation. God brings about racial reconciliation so that “through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.”^[13] The church is a witness to the heavenly realm of the richly varied, beautiful wisdom of the God who is reconciling all things. Or, in other words, racial reconciliation is spiritual warfare.

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[1] Tet-Lim N. Yee, Jews, Gentiles and Ethnic Reconciliation: Paul’s Jewish Identity and Ephesians.

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.)

[2] Eph 2:12

[3] Eph 2:13

[4] Eph 2:15-16

[5] Andrew T. Lincoln and A. J. M. Wedderburn, The Theology of the Later Pauline Letters. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 93

[6] Bruce Fong, “Addressing the Issue of Racial Reconciliation According to the Principles of Eph 2:11-22,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 38/4 (Dec 1995): 572.

[7] Turner, “Unity,” 144.

[8] Fong, “Racial,” 575.

[9] cf. Acts 21:28-29; Eph 3:1; See Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1993.), Eph. 2:14-16.

[10] Eph 3:19

[11] Eph 3:6

[12] R. J. McKelvey, The New Temple: The Church in the New Testament, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), 118.

[13] Eph 3:10

A Taste of Things to Come (Part 2): Context of the Church in Ephesians

Context of the Church: Cosmic Unity (Ephesians 1:3-23)

The opening of Ephesians presents a sweeping picture of cosmic salvation that sets the backdrop for Paul’s view of the church in the book. After greeting the readers, Paul opens his letter with an exuberant praise of God for the glorious salvation given in Christ. He paints an expansive picture of God’s grace over the course of his eleven-verse berakah, reaching the “high point of the eulogy” in verses 9-10:[1]

“And 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 will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.”

From the very beginning, God’s plan has been for all things to be summed up under the rule of Jesus Christ. Because of sin, the world is currently in a state of alienation, brokenness, and hostility, rather than the original harmony of Eden. Just has he promised in the Old Testament, God is reversing this state of affairs, bringing creation “back from warring alienation into peaceful unity.”[2] More than simply saving individuals, Christ’s work accomplishes large-scale healing for the entire created order, both in heaven and on earth. It ultimately brings about “the reintegration of the whole cosmos rent asunder by sin” in which all things find their proper place under the rule of Jesus.[3]

The benefits of Christ’s cosmic rule are focused on the church. Paul asserts that “God placed all things under [Christ’s] feet and appointed him to be head over everything,” a huge claim of the supremacy of Christ. He continues, however, saying that the benefits of this accomplishment are “for the church.” Why? Because the church is “his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”[4] The wide-ranging effects of Christ’s cosmic redemption bless the church because it is the community that has been joined with Christ and is filled with his powerful, reconciling presence.

Although this cosmic reconciliation is primarily eschatological, occurring “when the times will have reached their fulfillment,” because it has already been achieved and inaugurated in Jesus, it can be experienced, in part, right now. Because of the presence of the Holy Spirit, God’s people can have both an assurance and a foretaste of the coming cosmic redemption.[5] Thus, the church is the arena in which the eschatological reconciliation can be seen and experienced ahead of time. It is “the first installment of cosmic reconciliation.”[6] The entire book of Ephesians can be read as an exposition of this reality, as it depicts what the life of the church looks like in light of the church’s present experience of future redemption in Christ.

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[1] P. T. O’Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians. (Leicester: Apollos, 1999), 92.

[2] Max Turner, “Mission and Meaning in Terms of ‘Unity’ in Ephesians,” in Mission and Meaning, ed. Antony Billington, Tony Lane, and Max Turner. (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 1995), 140, 141-142.

^[3] Giles, 134.

[4] Eph. 1:22-23

^[5] Eph. 1:13-14

[6] Turner, “Unity,” 157.

A Taste of Things to Come (Part 1): Introduction and Background to Ephesians

The church is a foundational reality in the thinking and ministry of the apostle Paul. Unlike most modern readers, whose instincts are often individualistic, Paul has communal and corporate realities at the forefront of his thought. In each of his letters, Paul consciously spoke into the lives of Christian communities, not merely individual Christians. In his letter to the Ephesians, it is clear why the church is so important to Paul. Max Turner says that “in no Pauline letter is the church so remarkably prominent.”[1] Markus Barth says that “Ephesians is in its very essence a church letter.”[2] Ephesians shows us what a high view of the church Paul actually had. As Kevin Giles puts it, “Nowhere else in the New Testament do we find such a lofty ecclesiology.”[3] For Paul, the church was not a mere side-effect of the gospel, but an integral component of God’s unfolding salvation-history. This paper will explore the theme of the church in Ephesians, showing how it fits into the book’s cosmic vision of salvation in Christ and how that context impacts the concrete life of the church.

Background to Ephesians

Among Paul’s letters, Ephesians yields the least amount of information about the specific situation it addresses. In fact, it is not even certain that the letter was written to the church in Ephesus, as the label “in Ephesus” is missing from 1:1 in some of the best manuscripts.[4] Because of this and the general lack of specific names, places, or problems in the letter, scholars cannot come to a firm sense of what circumstances, if any, Paul aimed to address.[5] It is likely that the letter was at least partially intended to be circular, going to multiple churches in a region. As a result it lacks the specificity of other Pauline letters, like Galatians, Corinthians, or even the very similar letter to the Colossians. At best, some have suspected that Paul was addressing a church where some tensions existed between Jews and Gentiles, as this is a prominent theme in the book. Even so, it is difficult to read Ephesians against any particular background, and the letter functions as more of a general overview of Pauline teaching. This is probably why, when discussing the church, Ephesians tends to focus on the universal church, rather than a specific congregation.[6]

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^[1] Max Turner, Max “Ephesians, Book of,” in Dictionary for the Theological Interpretation of the Bible, ed. by Kevin Vanhoozer (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005), 189.

[2] Markus Barth, The Broken Wall. (London: Collins, 1960), 17.

^[3] Kevin Giles, What on Earth is the Church? (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1995), 132.

^[4] D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo, and Leon Morris, Introduction to the New Testament. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 309-311.

^[5] Ibid., 312

[6] Harold W. Hoehner, Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002), 112. Paul’s presentation of the church in a more universal sense, rather than local, is somewhat unique to Colossians and Ephesians. Specifically, the church is portrayed as an eschatological and heavenly assembly. See P. T. O’Brien, “The Church as a Heavenly and Eschatological Entity,” in The Church in the Bible and the World, ed. D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1987), 88-119. Against this view, see Giles 125-51, I. Howard Marshal, New Testament Theology. (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2004), 392