Ephesians 1:3–14

Original Meaning

God Blessed Us in Christ to Be Holy (1:3–4)

THE GOD WHO acted in Christ and chose Christians to live before him deserves praise. The words translated “Praise be to God” are actually, “Blessed is the God.” By using the word “praise” the NIV loses the play on three occurrences of the root “bless”: “Blessed is the God who blessed us with every spiritual blessing.” To use the same word both for our worship of God and of God’s showering us with spiritual gifts is foreign to us, but this double meaning of the word bless is common in both the Old and New Testament. For example, note “The LORD bless you” in Numbers 6:24 and “Bless the LORD” in Psalm 103:1.5 The worship of Zechariah in Luke 1:68–75 is similar to Ephesians 1:3–14, in that it begins with “Blessed is the Lord God of Israel”6 and goes on to explain all God has done to save his people. Such a blessing concludes each of the five books of the Psalms.

“Every spiritual blessing” has been granted to us in Christ (see 2 Peter 1:3). “Spiritual” does not mean these gifts are “otherworldly,” nor does it suggest the spiritual gifts listed in 1 Corinthians 12:3–11, 28. Rather, the expression refers to all that God’s Spirit brings to enable life.7 The letter will unfold all these blessings, but the immediate context mentions election, adoption, grace, forgiveness, revelation, the gospel, and the Holy Spirit. As verses 13–14 show, the Spirit is the primary gift and the source of all the others.

The expression “in the heavenly realms” is difficult. Paul does not mean that spiritual blessings are to be enjoyed later in heaven, for the focus of this text is on the present enjoyment of God’s gifts. In fact, focus on “getting into heaven” in the future is not the primary concern of the New Testament. The concern is much more for the present life with God and in Christ. While the coming age is important in Ephesians, only 5:5 and 6:8 give any focus to gaining future salvation, and both of these verses mention the future only as a prod for present living. Literally, the text reads only “in the heavenlies”; and although this word occurs elsewhere as the adjective “heavenly,” it has the sense of “the heavenly realms” only in Ephesians. The term is not, however, merely a synonym for “heaven,” as an examination of the four other occurrences in Ephesians shows. This phrase can refer to:

(1) the place of exaltation for Christ (1:20) and believers (2:6)

(2) the place for revelation of God’s wisdom to the rulers and authorities (3:10)

(3) more negatively, the place of battle between believers and evil spiritual forces (6:12).

In other words, “heavenly realms” does not refer to a physical location but to a spiritual reality—God’s world, in which believers have a share and which evil forces still seek to attack. It includes all of the believer’s relation to God and the church’s experience.8 It is a way of saying that this world is not the only reality. A larger reality exists where Christ is already exalted as Lord, where believers participate in his victory, and where spiritual forces are opposed. Though believers live physically on this earth, they receive spiritual resources and their identity from a higher plane. The spiritual blessings given to Christians are enjoyed in the present life, for they derive from what God has done in Christ in the heavenlies.

“In Christ” and related expressions, as already noted in our comments on 1:1, are among the most important components of Paul’s theology, especially in Ephesians.9 Every element in Paul’s teachings flows from his understanding about our union with Christ. Note how these expressions dominate this section. God’s purpose and election take place in Christ (1:4, 9, 11). God’s grace and redemption are found in Christ (1:6–7). All things in heaven and on earth are summed up in Christ (1:10). People hope in Christ, hear the word in Christ, and by faith are sealed in Christ (1:12–13). Remember that this whole section is worship: God is being praised, and the focus of that praise is what God has done in Christ and what is available in Christ.

No simple definition of “in Christ” will do, and each occurrence must be analyzed individually and in context. At times, “in Christ” functions instrumentally to convey that something happens by Christ or through his work, such as “through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free …” (Rom. 8:2).10 At other times the expression is used adjectivally in the sense of “Christian” (see 2 Cor. 12:2). In other places it qualifies an action, such as in Ephesians 6:1: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord.”

But the most important use of “in Christ” has a “local” sense and points to incorporation into Christ. That is, Christ is the “place” where believers reside, the source in which they find God’s salvation and blessings, and the framework in which they live and work. It is as if Christ were a vast repository holding the gifts of God, but, of course, without losing any sense of Christ as person. Christ is the source of all spiritual blessings, and because believers reside in him they can enjoy those blessings. Just as Christ’s personhood is not lost, neither is the believer’s individuality lost. This is not some eastern religious thought of absorption into the deity. Rather, Christ and the believer are bound into a unity in which Christ sets the parameters for life and makes available God’s provisions for life. The logical conclusion of this thinking is Paul’s use of the body imagery, which is of major importance in Ephesians.

The origin of Paul’s in Christ thinking is uncertain. The only other New Testament documents with anything similar are the Johannine writings, with their focus on the reciprocal idea of believers remaining in Christ and his remaining in them. This suggests the roots of this thinking may stem from Jesus, though Paul’s usage cannot be traced to explicit words of Jesus. Some scholars suggest the origin is in Old Testament texts that speak of Abraham as the one in whom all nations are blessed.11 Christ, the one who has taken on the task of Israel, has become the new representative head in whom all will be blessed. This may be a factor, but Paul’s theology of baptism as dying and rising with Christ is also probably behind the idea of being in Christ (see Rom. 6:3–8).

We should note that in 1:4,12 Paul’s concern from the first is ethical transformation, although he does not explore that issue until chapters 4–6. Paul sought to encourage believers by telling them of the grandeur of salvation, but he also wanted to challenge them to live in keeping with God’s grace. Life from God results in transformed life with God. This expectation of “holy and blameless” living flows from God’s choosing people and separating them to himself. This thought is commentary on the title “saints” or “holy ones” in 1:1 and is paralleled by the expectation in 5:27 that the church be holy and blameless.

Bridging Contexts

TO EXPLAIN PAUL’S thought for today we must explain unfamiliar or archaic ideas. Even more important, however, is the process of theologizing, whereby we understand the theology at work in a text, whether implicit or explicit. The theology of a text is what we really apply. If we grasp what a text teaches about God, Christ, salvation, or other subjects, we can apply that understanding to life.

Building blocks. Especially in a passage as theologically loaded as 1:3–14, we must not only deal with particular topics like in Christ and grace, but we must also stand back and view the text as a whole. By looking at the “building blocks” of the text, a larger theological perspective comes in view. At least three building blocks should be noticed: the focus on all three persons of the Trinity, the threefold perspective on time, and the theology of worship.

(1) Much of this section contains unfamiliar thought. We are not accustomed to focusing on God and his plan. Ideas such as election are foreign to us and require “translation,” while other ideas require the rearranging of our whole worldview. In our contemporary perspective, we as human beings are the primary actors on the stage of history, but Paul’s doxology asserts that God is the primary actor. No bridge exists from his worship to our worldview. A change of perspective is required before we can begin to apply the text. We need Paul’s sense of God at work for us in Christ and through the Spirit.

(2) God’s character is best described as a “God for us” (cf. Rom. 8:31), the one who has chosen us. God has always been and always will be this kind of God. God is the God of past, present, and future, and in all three he is at work for us. Our security rests on what he did before the foundation of the world, on what he did and continues to do in Christ and in the Spirit, and on what he has promised for the future. God has intentionally chosen and planned to go to great lengths to achieve salvation for people. This is not an afterthought on his part, but the very essence of who he is. God is a gregarious God, who created people for relation with him. The outcome of creation is not in doubt, for God has been at work from the beginning and has already set Christ as the one who will accomplish his purposes. God will have a people for himself. When that happens, people will see how loving and relational he is. The language of Ephesians 1:9–14 looks forward to that day.

(3) Since this text is a doxology, obviously its first importance is what it teaches about worship and about the God who is worshiped. As in the Psalms, Paul’s praise is descriptive of God and his actions. Worship always has this “narrative” quality, recounting the actions of God. For Christians, while they do not ignore other actions of God, the center is always on God’s work in Christ, as the doxology shows. Though we do not know precisely where Paul’s prayer stops, it is clear that his prayer includes a recounting of God’s actions and that it is theological by its very nature. Doxology is theology and vice versa. This is obviously no cold recounting, however, for the reality of God’s work for us creates deep emotion that energizes us.

In Christ. The New Testament writers groped for words to explain the reality they found as believers in Jesus as the Messiah and Lord. No single explanation or image was adequate, and consequently they used a variety of figures and sometimes even created new expressions. “In Christ” is just such a creation.

We assume that reality is the physical world around us, which we see and experience. The doxology—as all the Bible—asserts that reality is much larger, that it also includes God and his actions and what takes place “in Christ” and “in the heavenly realms.” In bridging contexts we must expand our thinking to do justice to this “larger reality.” Christians live in two realities at the same time: their physical world and in the heavenlies in Christ. We live in the reality of God’s work in Christ and the gift of his Spirit. What we need for life is found in Christ, or, as Colossians especially emphasizes, Christ is all and all you need.

The idea of being “in Christ” presents one of the most difficult bridging tasks in Ephesians. How could early Christians think they were “in” a person who had been alive with them only a few years earlier and whose brothers they knew? They did not speak of being in James, nor do we speak of being in John Wesley or Martin Luther. The difficulty in our comprehending the idea of being in Christ is compounded by typical evangelical language about conversion. Christians today usually speak of inviting Christ into their hearts in order to be able to go to heaven, but language about “Christ being in us” and a concern over our going to heaven are relatively rare in the Bible, especially in Paul.31

Scholars often debate which theological idea is central in Paul’s thought. Some choose justification by faith, but the verb justify only occurs four times outside Romans and Galatians and not at all in Ephesians. “In Christ” with its 164 occurrences, 36 of which are in Ephesians, is much more likely the central motif, or at least a central motif. Just as redemption is “in Christ” (1:7), so justification and every other act of God take place in Christ.32 In fact, the only way that the atonement makes sense, the only way that Christ’s death is effective for us, is if the union between Christ and believers is so strong that in some way his death is our death and his life is our life. This solidarity is achieved by a double identification via the Incarnation and faith. In the Incarnation Christ identifies with us and by faith we identify with him.

Closely related to the idea of being “in Christ” is the language of doing something “with Christ” or of “dying and rising with Christ.”33 The result is that believers are so closely connected to Christ that the “body” image is one of the most expressive pictures of the relation. Christians are part of Christ (5:30) and part of each other (4:25). Much of Ephesians is summarized with these two statements.

The statement that Christians are part of Christ has enormous implications for how we understand salvation and Christology. (1) With regard to salvation, Paul teaches that we are embodied in Christ and share his death and resurrection. Evangelicals usually focus on Christ’s substitution for us as the key idea in salvation. As important as substitution is (see 5:2), it is only one aspect of the explanation, not the whole teaching. In fact, the way people understand substitution often militates against Paul’s emphasis on being in Christ, for substitution suggests that Christ takes our place and we are removed from the picture, whereas in Paul’s view we are caught up into Christ and made one with him. (2) With regard to Christology, Paul’s Christ is no longer viewed merely as a human being. He is the cosmic Christ, the focus of God’s activity from eternity (1:4), the one who embodies and represents all humanity (1:6–7), the one in whom all God’s good gifts are available (1:3), and the one in whom all creation can be summed up (1:10). Without using Christological titles, Paul’s in Christ thinking expresses a full Christology.34

Election. If “in Christ” is difficult to explain to a modern culture, surely election is as well. At first glance election seems to be an archaic idea, confined to the biblical mindset and more troublesome than helpful for modern audiences. We have difficulty thinking that God chooses some and ignores the rest. How can God be a God of love and do this? But such conclusions run far beyond the text of Ephesians.

At the same time, perhaps election is not as foreign as first thought. Being selected for a team or an organization, being admitted to a school, or being chosen by someone of the opposite sex are all affirmations of value. In recent times black Muslim extremists have argued that the Jews are not God’s chosen people, but that blacks are. Similarly, white supremacists have argued that not Jews but whites are God’s chosen race. Both groups are seeking to coopt language for valuing themselves. Election, as it relates to humans, expresses two ideas: the value given to human beings by God and responsibility they owe to God. Both are still important.

The election language in Ephesians 1 is primarily about God and shows why God should be praised. Any conclusions drawn must derive from the fact that this is a doxology, not a systematic theology. This is not to ignore the theological significance of doxologies, but to stay within Paul’s intention with his worship. His purpose is to focus on God at work, planning and drawing people to himself through Christ. If the focus is corporate rather than individual and if people are elect only in the Elect One, Christ, then this text has nothing to do with our fear that God chooses some and ignores others. That is a nonbiblical conclusion about the result of election and the question who is elect. The focus of the biblical text is on the cause of election—God—and its purpose—that Christians live holy and blameless before God. God values human beings and draws them—both Jews and Gentiles—to himself in Christ. The focus is God’s grace, and this text will not support any discussions about arbitrary decisions from God.

Numerous questions remain about election, and Christians will no doubt disagree on the answers. Can election be lost? Is it possible to have once been in Christ and then be out of him? But this text (and most others) do not treat our questions and suggest they may be misguided. Paul was more interested in praising God for his grace. While granting an element of mystery in the subject of election, certain points must be emphasized:

(1) Election is God’s grace in action.

(2) God chose Abraham and then Israel for a task—to bless all the nations of the earth (Gen. 12:3).

(3) Jesus took on the task of Israel as God’s Elect One.

(4) People are elect in Christ for relation to God.

(5) While God chooses, people still have choice and are responsible for their decisions.

(6) Election does demonstrate God’s favor, which can be a strong support in a time of difficulty, but it is never to be treated as a sign of superiority.

(7) More important, election always implies responsibility. People are chosen to do something.

(8) The ultimate goal of election is the revelation of God’s own character, which Ephesians expresses as the praise of his glory.

Consequently, most of the debates about election should be politely set aside. If we focus on praising God for valuing us and if we realize the responsibility that his valuing brings, we have understood Paul, and the other questions on election recede in importance. No one should worry whether he or she is elect. The main question is: “Are you in Christ and one with him?”

The responsibility election brings in this text is ethical: We are to live holy and blameless lives before God. Some will blanche at the call to be holy and blameless. While Paul rejected his so-called blameless experience as a Jew, he still called on Christians to live blamelessly (cf. Phil. 2:15 with 3:6). This text does not promote perfectionism, but it does call for Christians to live lives of service to God.

Salvation language. Paul described his message as “the gospel of salvation” (1:13), but many in our culture have no sense of danger or do not feel any need for salvation. Specific words for salvation may complicate our attempt to understand. Words like “grace,” for example, communicate hardly any content today, and even familiar words such as “adopted” and “inheritance” seem strange in discussions about God. Bridging contexts requires patient effort to unpack the words and to discuss both the human plight and God’s work to deal with the problem. In the end, all salvation language seeks to describe God’s dealings with human sin and alienation from him in order to restore people to himself.

In describing this saving work, the doxology presents a constellation of the main ideas in Paul’s theology. Of course, not everything is included, but Paul uses five key words to describe Christianity—grace, truth, faith, love, and hope. All five appear in 1:3–1435 and in key passages throughout the letter. There is a logical order to the five. Grace always comes first; that is why it receives so much attention at the beginning of this letter. It describes God’s action and is foundational for understanding the other terms.

But grace is a difficult word.36 People know it is important, but too often it carries little meaning (in spite of the popularity of the song “Amazing Grace”) and has only a “liturgical” function. Grace is the reality we need for life. It emphasizes that God values us and seeks us despite our failure and sin. It underscores that God is the one who always takes the initiative and who empowers us. Even when human beings ignore him, God still seeks people and draws them to himself. “Grace” is too important theologically to drop, but it is so hard to grasp that it may have to be modeled before it can be understood.

Another word of salvation that requires bridging is redemption (cf. 1:7). The word has little current use, and its theological content is not easily recognized. What people need to know is that they belong to God and always have. Further, God has gone to great lengths—he has paid a price—to identify with humanity through the life, death, and resurrection of his Son and to bring people back to himself. Redemption means that God is at work getting people back to himself. We should not speculate to whom the price is paid. This is a figure of speech, and Scripture never discusses the idea of a literal payment.

A sense of time. Hearing this passage also requires us to reflect on time. We tend to think only about the present, but any sane life must focus on past, present, and future. People need to know their roots and ultimate destination as well as their present. For Christians all this is heightened. We need a deep sense of God’s whole story: his activity in Israel, especially his foundational work in Christ, and his comforting promise for the future. But we may not abdicate the present for either the past or the future. Christians are people who live in the present, founded on the past, and pulled by the future. Moreover, the future is not merely “out there”; it is already experienced. The ultimate promises of God are already being enjoyed in the present, even though their completion is still to come. This “already-not yet” understanding of time must dominate Christian living.

The most important aspect of this “already-not yet” thinking has to do with the Holy Spirit. In addition to the activity of God the Father and the Christological implications of this text, both 1:3 and 1:13–14 reveal important information about the Spirit. Though promised at the end of the age, the Spirit has already been given to us by the resurrected Christ. He both conveys God’s present blessing to us (v. 3) and is proof that we belong to him (v. 13). Through the Spirit, Christians already now enjoy the privileges of life with God. And the Spirit also guarantees what is still future, when life with God is brought to fulfillment in future salvation.

Contemporary Significance

APPLICATION OF A doxology cannot be done in a direct way. This passage asks nothing explicitly of the readers, but the implicit message suggests application on two levels. At one level the application is imitation. The readers should do just what Paul did—worship and praise God. Any attempt to analyze and explain this passage falls far short of the exuberance of Paul’s praise. But at the second level the implications of the theology of this passage for Christian living are enormous. We will reflect on some of them here; others will be explained by the rest of the letter.

Reality and worship. Why do people fail to live in relation to God and to serve him? Is it not because most of the time we view God as a remote being, cut off from us and not involved with us—a being whose expectations are not important, at least not in the reality we know? Ephesians more than any other book seeks to show that God is not remote, that he has been and is active for us, and that he will affect both individuals and the church by what he does.

The gospel is an expression of reality, actually an assault on the reality we know. Reality is not just this world, but includes God’s purpose in this world and the next. As Walter Wink reminds us, “To worship is to remember Who owns the house.”37 If we have some perspective that the “real reality” in which we live has to do with a God who values us and has been active for us, our lives by necessity change. Suddenly, what God expects becomes important.

This is the reason why worship and praise are so crucial. They give opportunity for us to tell the truth about ourselves and God. In worship a community recreates its own soul;38 it reestablishes who it really is. In worship we reject what is pseudo-real and inadequate to define us, and we affirm the “real reality” of God, his salvation, and human responsibility.

Any persecuted group knows this, but perhaps no church group knows this better than the black church. Black Christians for generations have maintained that the defining reality in the world they experience is a pseudo-reality, seeing that blacks too are God’s privileged children and that God will one day see to it that justice will prevail. Worship is the place where the dream has been kept alive. Unfortunately, churches now—both black and white—too often buy into the pseudo-reality of this world to such an extent that God’s intent is blurry at best. Many have accepted the view that sin will win. True, worship is always cultural in that it uses culture for expression, but worship is also always countercultural, for it refuses to accept the pseudo-reality of its time. We need to keep the dream alive of God’s “real reality,” and therefore we need to worship with the focus and intensity that Paul does in his doxology. God will win, not sin. In worship we acknowledge God because he has acknowledged us (cf. Rom. 1:21, 28).

Prayer and praise are the activities that hold the “real reality” before us. As Karl Barth put it, “To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.”39 Consequently, our prayer and worship must always have a theological character, reminding us who God is. Rather than prayer being our list of needs for this pseudo-reality, it must describe God and his reality and thereby draw us closer to God.

This God we worship is not a remote God. He is a Father to us (1:3), and we are his children (1:5). Life is lived before him (1:4), and his Spirit has been given to us (1:13–14). Life is relational, both in relation to God and in relation to other people. This text focuses on life as relation with God. People often fear they will miss something in life if they live in relation to God. What they will miss is the distortion and perversion of life without God and the heartbreak that results. Life with God is not some minimalist approach to life; rather, God’s Spirit has brought every privilege.

I have a sense that the church of our time has forgotten how to worship. The old forms of worship do not fit, and the new forms do not convince. How will we recover the depth and spontaneity of Paul’s doxology? I offer no fix-it plan for worship, but I am convinced that the key to worship is not in procedures, but in experiencing God; not in a plan for worship, but in time for worship and eyes sensitive enough to discern God and his work. Knowledge of God leads to wonder and worship. There is no way to learn to worship apart from doing it. Abraham Heschel understood well the character of worship:

Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living…. Only one response can maintain us: gratefulness for witnessing the wonder, for the gift of our unearned right to serve, to adore, and to fulfill. It is gratefulness which makes the soul great.40

Furthermore, you must worship something, and you will by giving yourself to it. But nothing or no one else besides God merits such a level of attention. Nothing else offers so much in return; in fact idols usually require costly sacrifices—your dignity, your freedom, your integrity, and healthy relations for a start. Further, as Tom Wright points out, “You become like what you worship.”41 Devotion shapes us, but since we were created in the image of God, only God has the right to shape us. All else is distortion and sin. Worship is our breath, our hold on life. Learn to worship.

The reality of being in Christ. Most important, we live in Christ.42 Awareness of the presence of God and of living in Christ are the keys to all of life. People sin because they forget God. How strange that we forget the “place” we live. If we know we live before God and in Christ, we know we live in a defining presence. Our lives become determined by the character of Christ and God. It becomes increasingly difficult to say, “I know I live in Christ, but I am going to do the opposite of what Christ expects.” Christian ethics are grounded in our being in Christ. The alternative, rule-keeping, is always an inadequate foundation for Christian ethics, because it asks the individual to conform to an external norm. If one lives in Christ, however, Christ is that person’s environment. Christians must live out of their environment, out of an inner definition that comes from being in Christ and empowered by his Spirit. The expectation in 1:4b that people live holy and blameless before God flows from this understanding.

Without ignoring the importance of Christ’s being in us, the neglected idea of our being in Christ is much more significant. If we emphasize only that Christ is in us, we define reality, and Christ is about one inch tall. If we realize we are in Christ, he determines reality and encompasses all we are.

For Paul faith is incorporation into Christ, a fellowship with him that determines life. The Christian religion is far more than merely believing certain facts, as a recent news magazine claimed. Fellowship with Christ cannot be reduced to belief in certain doctrines about Christ. We cannot appropriate Christ’s death for us personally apart from our being in Christ. Participation in Christ is destructive of wrong allegiances, tyrannies, and misdirection, and it is dynamic and creative so that one becomes a “Christ-bearer.” Being in Christ is another way to talk about the fact that Jesus is Lord. He determines our being.

Christians must live like people who know their “geography,” who know they live in Christ and consequently are part of him. As a result, Christians should never view themselves merely as individuals. Yes, they are still individual persons, but not merely individuals. They are part of Christ, and as will be developed in the letter, also part of other people in Christ. As such, they should always act in accord with who he is. Everything they do—whether good or bad—involves Christ. Knowing that we are part of Christ brings ethical transformation.43

Paul’s “in Christ” theology will inevitably change the way we do evangelism. The standard line of “asking Jesus into your heart so you can go to heaven” is weak in comparison to what Paul describes, and there is little evidence this was his procedure. Clearly Paul asked for faith in Jesus, but what did this mean? Other passages in Ephesians will help us answer this question (see on 2:8), but what is clear already is that for Paul, faith brought about a unity with Christ.

What language shall we use to invite people into Christ? Possibly the discipleship imagery of following Jesus or attaching oneself to him is a good place to begin. Paul’s language of dying and rising with Christ may prove effective. Whatever language is used, people need to be encouraged to know that faith is relational and means that they merge their lives into Christ’s and become part of his body. Attaining salvation, in other words, does not result from believing enough facts, but from being joined to Christ. The emphasis on going to heaven needs to be placed in perspective so that present life with Christ and life in the Spirit receive proper attention. Such evangelism may require more thought, but it almost certainly will have more effect in changing lives.

The reality of being blessed and valued. The emphasis in 1:3 on God’s blessing us with every spiritual blessing can easily lead to misunderstanding. We think of blessing primarily in terms of health and material things, but this is not a health and wealth theology. Also, sometimes when we read a text like this, we are tempted to say, “But I don’t feel blessed.” Remember that this text was written to a general audience about whom Paul may have known little or nothing. He is not describing how well off they were from this world’s perspective or how happy they felt. As already mentioned, the physical world is not the limit of his reality. His statement of being blessed in Christ is just as true even if his addressees were enduring persecution. It is as true of Christians being tormented in a war-torn African nation as it is of overly indulgent American Christians. Paul’s focus is on what God has provided with his Spirit and in Christ. The text is not “otherworldly” in contrast to this world, but it does focus on “the other reality” and its impact in this life. The blessings are the values and salvation described in the rest of the passage.

Election. Election may seem to have little contemporary significance, and nothing is gained by trying to force this language on people. In fact, election language may mislead, for it suggests voting on the basis of value, merit, recognition, and accomplishment—none of which pertain to God’s election. On the other hand, the language may be too valuable to give up, for the doctrine of election removes the idea that we are in control. We must never think we do all the choosing and assume God is waiting like some wallflower to be chosen. We want to be in control; election says otherwise.

Regardless of what words we use, the function of the election language is important. It both rooted the Christian movement squarely in God’s dealings with Israel—which should never be minimized—and emphasized the activity and valuing God does in drawing people to himself. The moment people take seriously the fact that God values them, their whole outlook on life changes. If God gives himself to us, always giving us freedom to choose and act independently, but always wooing us and accepting us, then a dignity and value is placed in us that nothing else can achieve. Such valuing motivates all of life.

All the focus on God’s choosing and acting should not be taken to an extreme. As one theologian put it, “With theology you always have to pay.”44 He meant that if we pay too much on one theological idea, we do not have enough left for other necessary truths. People often pay so much for ideas like election that they have nothing left to pay for other necessities like human freedom and responsibility. Biblical ideas must always be held in tension with other biblical ideas. Paul’s discussion of God’s choosing has nothing to do with fatalism or a determinism that diminishes human action and responsibility. The tendency to ask how much of salvation is God’s part and how much is the human part is misguided. It assumes that human beings and God stand in isolation. The truth is that salvation is entirely a work of God in which humans are totally involved. If God is the one in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28), we do not stand isolated from him in making a decision for him. God is the one who works in and through us even as we choose him.

Wendell Berry grasped this intertwining of God’s life and ours:

The problem, of course, is that we are not the authors of ourselves. Each of us has had many authors…. We could say that the human race is a great coauthorship in which we are collaborating with God and nature in the making of ourselves and one another. From this there is no escape.45

We collaborate with God to make ourselves and one another. This is Paul’s argument in Ephesians. But Paul makes a prior point: God acted first. He created us, he gave us all we need in Christ, and he housed his Spirit in us so that we can collaborate with him to live holy lives. Christianity is a marvelously freeing and creating faith.

Blessed to be holy. Sometimes Christians debate whether the church is a company of freed believers or a hospital for sick souls. This is not an either-or choice, for surely the church is made up of believers who have been given freedom in Christ in order to be a community of healing for the broken. Our text, however, forces us to rethink the character of the church, one of the central themes of the letter. Christians are to live in a holy and blameless manner before God (1:4). This is not an oppressive weight, but as much privilege as it is responsibility. We are called to live in keeping with God’s intent for us.

Whatever else the church is, it must be a community of changed people, a community focused on ethical living before God. The concern is not “do-goodism” or keeping rules, but being people who live out their relation to God. People both in and outside the church have the right to expect changed behavior from Christians. Purity—or right living—is not an option.

Nowhere is proper conduct more needed than in the lives of church leaders and pastors. We live in a time when virtually all respect for pastors and church leaders has been lost, for too many of these people have abused their positions for selfish reasons or have shown that their relation with God made no difference. Ethical living that flows from life with God is the responsibility of all Christians, and leaders must demonstrate that or resign. To be blessed and valued by God demands life in keeping with God.

Grace. This text is one of the most expressive texts on grace in the New Testament. The wealth of God’s grace is lavished on us (1:6–8) and is a main reason for praise to God. Paul’s theology of grace will be expanded in 2:4–10; 3:7–10; 4:7–10, 29–32, but already here the implications are clear. The primary application has to do with how we view ourselves and our own egos. A sense of being inundated with God’s grace rules out any negative self-perceptions or devaluing and any sense of the meaninglessness of life. How can we call meaningless what God has valued so greatly? How can we count worthless what God has chosen and invested in? At the same time there can be no arrogance or overestimation of self because all the value comes from God. Grace eliminates both egotism and self-deprecation.

Paul does not spell out here the responsibility that comes with grace, but clearly “cheap grace” is not a viable option. If God has lavished so much value on us, we cannot devalue his efforts by ignoring him or the implications for life. Grace must lead to the very place it does in this text—to gratitude, a gratitude that is both spoken and lived. For Christianity, religion is grace and ethics is gratitude.46 The first response to God’s valuing us must be thanks and praise to God. All the rest of Christian living flows from this.

As the language of grace and election shows, most of this doxology is really about God’s valuing of us. God blessed us, chose us from eternity, graced us, planned for us, sent Christ for us, revealed to us, will sum up all things in Christ in whom we have a part, gave us the Spirit as a guarantee, and will redeem us as his own people. The threefold repetition to the praise of his glory (1:6, 12, 14) shows the only possible response—worship and thanks to the God who values us and acts for us. The text is both a call to worship and a classic example of what worship should be.

People who know the value God has for them find both worship and obedience natural—not necessarily easy, but natural. The problem is that so many of us have difficulty believing that God really does value us personally and individually. Mere words about God’s valuing will not change the perception of those who already have negative self-images or who have been beaten down by life. The church has a responsibility in valuing people. With their worship Christians attest to the “real reality” where God values and seeks each human, and with their own actions Christians convey value to others by the way they live.

As indicated above with election, any theological point can be taken to an extreme. When too much or the wrong kind of emphasis is placed on value from God, the danger is arrogance and pharisaism. Focus on the privilege of revelation and election led Jews in the ancient world to develop disdain for non-Jews. Christians have been guilty of the same sin. Value from God can get translated as inherent superiority to other people. Such an attitude cannot legitimately exist with a proper understanding of grace.

The reality of God at work. Clearly this text emphasizes the activity of God with regard to the past, present, and future. All too easily people assume God is not active because they do not see obvious actions from him. But God is rarely “public” in his actions. In fact, Isaiah 45:15 says that God is a hidden God, or as one scholar put it, “an elusive presence.” God does not force himself on us, but this hidden God does reveal himself and is active in making his grace and his purposes in Christ known. We almost need a sign that reads “Slow down—God at work.” Confidence that God is at work fulfilling his purposes preconditions us to anticipate his work and be receptive to it. Correct theology about an active God leads to godly living.

Care must be exercised, however, in language about God’s actions. Convinced that God does work, people assume that all that happens is his action, which is not true. We live in a contingent world, where good and bad things happen to both good and bad people. God does not cause everything that happens. Such an idea overemphasizes the sovereignty of God. God may allow events to occur, but he does not manipulate them like some puppeteer. The problem why God allows horrible acts to happen to human beings will remain with us. Ephesians 2:1–3 refers to a “ruler of the kingdom of the air” who is also at work among the disobedient, and 5:3–16 points to human evil. Sickness and the violence of nature only compound the problem.

Most important, we as believers may be confident that no matter what does happen, it does not happen merely to us. We are not alone. In everything that happens we have to deal with God, especially when we live in Christ. We came from God, all of us. Whatever we do, even if it is sin, we are dealing with God. We are never alone and out of his sight or concern. And we are going to God; his plan is for a future with him. This is precisely the implication of the doxology with its focus on God’s planning in eternity to have a people for himself, on his work in Christ and in the Spirit, and on God’s future redemption and summing up all things in Christ.

This text is concerned about God’s future triumph, not about our getting into heaven. We should remember that this victory has already been demonstrated by his work in Christ. Ephesians 1:18–23 and 2:4–10 will develop this thought, but already in the doxology the future is not merely an event in some later time. This future has moved into the present and changes how Christians live. We both have and await redemption (1:7, 14). That means that Christians belong to God now and that his ownership will be finalized when Christ sums up all things. Christians must live as people who belong to God—people who know what is already theirs because they belong to God and what is still to come.

Nowhere is the future triumph of God conveyed so clearly as with the gift of the Holy Spirit. Ephesians will later develop several aspects of a theology of the Spirit, but 1:13–14 focuses on the Spirit as the verification that we belong to God and that God will complete his promise to us. Texts like this show that the gift of the Spirit is not some second blessing or higher stage of the Christian faith and life—something for the spiritually elite. Rather, the Spirit is the possession—the necessary possession—of all Christians. He is God’s gift to us showing that we are his, and he bestows on us a sense of God’s presence and involvement in our lives.47 The obvious benefit of having the Spirit is a sense of peace and security that comes with belonging to God. How does a person know he or she has the Spirit? Primarily in the change that is brought into life, especially love. Change is both the work of the Spirit and the evidence of the Spirit.

The reality of belonging to God is the reality in which we must live. God is at work, planning, blessing, valuing, and loving people, and his work in Christ and in the Spirit are both the means and the proof of his work. With this description of reality the doxology has already set the direction for the Christian life described in the rest of the letter. This is the reality from which Christians must understand themselves and from which they must live.

We close with a doxological paraphrase of Ephesians 1:3–14.

How marvelous God is! His Spirit has provided everything needed for life. Every good thing has been made available in Christ. We praise such a God.

Right from the first God has been busy devising a way to draw us home to himself so that we may live with him and for him. Through Jesus Christ he has made us family. As a result we owe God praise for the way he freely gave himself to us in Christ. In Christ’s death God’s abundant care for us is known; God gave himself for us to bring us back and make us his people. What lavish love he has for us! We honor you, God.

In his unfathomable wisdom God has made known his plan and desire to bring all things together in Christ. This includes everything in our world and everything in God’s world. Amazingly God’s plan includes us and gives us a share in what he is doing. For this we owe God praise for the hope that is ours in Christ. When we heard about the truth from God and believed the good news about his plan, God marked us as his own by giving us his Spirit. The Spirit’s dwelling in us is a pledge from God that he will complete his plan and that one day we will truly live with God. For this we owe God praise. Our God, we do worship you.