Have you ever paused to consider that you have a key part in God’s plan for salvation and reconciliation? We, as saved Christians, have been adopted into Christ’s family. The apostle Paul explains this in Ephesians 1:3-14.

Verses 3-14 contain the longest sentence in the Greek New Testament. It is as if Paul does not want to take a breath until he has communicated everything God has planned for His people, from eternity past until eternity future. This prayer is rooted in the content of Paul’s life. Expressed in prayer is a great new understanding that Paul has talked about but never fully developed in other letters: the abolishment of the barrier between Jew and Gentile in the fellowship of one church is not only a part of God’s plan for them, it is the key to understanding God’s plan for the whole universe-His intention to unify the entire universe in Christ Jesus. This is big thinking and big praying.

How we see ourselves, who we think ourselves to be, determines the direction of our lives and shapes our relationships. We need something to hold on to in our slippery world. That something is faith.  Our wide-open, permissive society has led to the comparing of our times with the period of sin and drunkenness in first-century Rome. We don’t use words like sin; we don’t take sin that seriously. Our society is bent on gratifying, titillating, and catering to our wants, whims, and wantonness-all for pleasure.

In talking about God’s plan and our place in it, Paul uses two phrases that deserve serious attention. The first phrase is “in the heavenly places.” This was not simply a designation for the habitat of God, or the place to which Christians go when they die. Heaven was a part of the created universe. For Paul it is a term of human topography. It was the realm of all unseen reality, good and evil. Not only God, but the evil powers have their operation “in the heavenly places.” Heaven also stands for man’s invisible, spiritual environment, as contrasted to the tangible, visible environment of earth.

The second phrase that Paul uses is “predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ.” The word “predestine” literally means to determine beforehand. In this context, it simply means that God the Father chose His people for a purpose and determined that His purpose would be their adoption as sons and daughters of Christ. In giving them all the corresponding rights and privileges-including free and unlimited access to the Father-He has assigned them the same status as Jesus. The salvation of Christ is universal in the sense that it is available to everyone. This phrase is the triumphant expression of the glory of the redeemed-those who have responded to their chosenness, to God’s grace.

In order to understand adoption as referred to by Paul, we have to understand Roman law. Girls were not adopted under Roman law. Only sons inherited property. Sons were frequently adopted in order to give them their grand inheritance, and the focus was on a Roman citizen who chose a son to be adopted. In adoption, it was the will of the father that was important, not the will of the son. All legal rights were with the father and none with the son. It was the father’s will which controlled everything. The concept of adoption was pleasureful, a source of happiness and joy as the father designated his adopted son to be his designated heir and receive a grand inheritance.

When we are adopted by Christ when we accept Him as our Saviour, we become full sons and daughters of Christ. We no longer remain as orphans who may grow up to be sold off as slaves. United as one loving family, we share our God-given, unique personalities and abilities. There is no greater privilege than to be sons and daughters of Christ. Together we will learn the mystery of God’s will and plans.

Against the backdrop of God’s concern of sin ravaging His children’s relationship with Him, Paul saw the Cross as the supreme revelation of love. This revelation was overwhelming-that the sinless One would become “sin for us,” ready and glad to endure the shame and agony of the Cross on our behalf. When Jesus Christ-the sinless Son of God-died on the cross, all our sins were transferred to Him, and He took upon Himself the judgment and hell that we deserve.

When Jesus said, “It is finished,” it meant that in every generation and from every nation, anyone who comes to Him and bows at His feet, receiving and accepting the blessings that come from that finished work of Christ, will be eternally saved. His sacrifice was once and for all, but its effect, it’s blessing, continues on and on and on to everyone who comes and bends their knees before Him, acknowledging Him as their Saviour and Lord. The action is finished, but the results continue. The work is done, but the effect continues.

Love and sacrifice go together. We are redeemed through the shed blood of Jesus. This is not a strange word for Paul. For sinners Jesus “made peace through the blood of His cross.” We are justified by His blood. Those who were once far off have been made near to God by the blood of Christ.

Paul was thinking about sacrifice, but the sacrifice was not an offering being made to secure favour; it is not a price paid to an enslaving power. The obedience of Christ’s life, the utter self-abandonment and self-consecration of love-an obedience unto death, “even death on a cross”-this was Christ’s sacrifice. The redemption wrought by this sacrifice is not the regaining of something through purchase, but deliverance by an act of divine power. Power, not price, is the key. That power is the very power of God because the love that initiated it is God’s love. The primary meaning of this redemption is forgiveness. The result of this forgiveness is that we can respond to God in all wisdom and prudence.

Those who are in Christ have every spiritual blessing needed for spirit, soul, and body; for the past, present, and future; for salvation and service; for time and eternity, both now and forever. The spiritual blessings believers have in Christ encompass every need and aspect in their lives. Paul specifies that these blessings are in the heavenly places so that readers will understand: this promise is not one of earthly blessings that will pass away but of spiritual blessings that will endure forever!

God is love, and love does not wish to live alone-by definition, love requires relationship, so God chose for Himself a people to be His own special possession. This is God’s gift to us, and we owe Him a boundless debt of gratitude for what He has done for us. Grace is God’s stance of giving, loving, and blessing.

The word “beloved” is a reference to Christ. The believer’s relationship with the sinless Christ is what makes him or her acceptable before God. God is a God of grace. His grace has been defined as His unmerited and undeserved love in action. It is by His grace that we are saved. It is by His grace that we are set free. It is by His grace that we are “accepted in the beloved.” The beloved is Jesus.

Six times in this Letter to the Ephesians, Paul reminds His readers of God’s riches: the riches of His grace, the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, the riches of His mercy, the exceeding riches of His grace, the unsearchable riches of Christ, and the riches of His glory. Because God is its source, this wealth can never be depleted and can never be lost. We think that anything worth having must require hard work and sacrifice on our part, but the grace of God is just the opposite. It is the supernatural intervention of God on our behalf.

The original force of the term “redemption” recalls the word “forum”, the place in ancient cities where slaves were bought and sold. Believers have been redeemed from the bondage of sin and freed by the shed blood of Christ. The purpose of God for our lives is not for us to receive honour and glory. All the good things that we accomplish are only possible because of Him, and He alone deserves all the praise for anything we do.

When the New Testament speaks of a mystery, it normally refers not to a secret, but to a truth that has previously been unknown. The mystery of God’s will focuses on God’s great plan to centre all things-both in heaven and on earth-in His Son, Jesus Christ. The mystery is now made known. The purpose that had been formed in divine counsel was expressed in the ordering of history: to “gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth-in Him.

The dispensation of the fullness of the times refers to the time when God’s plan will be fully revealed at the second coming of Christ. Then everyone on earth will recognize that Jesus is Lord. The literal meaning of this mystery is packed with significance. It boggles our minds as it did Paul’s-that all history has been a preparation for, a planning and thinking for, an arranging and an administering for the goal of God-that the world would be brought together as one family in Christ.

The believer’s inheritance consists of the promise of eternal life with God and all the spiritual blessings the heavenly Father supplies until then. Not only does God give His people an inheritance, but His people also make up His inheritance. God has deposited a Christ seed in us. As it grows, we will change. It’s not that sin has no more presence in our lives, but rather that sin has no more power over our lives. Temptation will pester us, but temptation will not master us.

When something is sealed, it is marked with the owner’s name and secured as his or her possession. God marks believers as His very own by sending His Holy Spirit to live in them. When we accept Christ in faith, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit. How does the Holy Spirt function? He is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession. To get the full impact of this statement we need to remember that in the New Testament, salvation is three-sided.  It is a past fact, a present experience, and a future hope. The Spirit reveals God, makes effective in our lives the power of Christ’s sacrifice, perfects in love (making us holy and blameless), and seals us forever as belonging to God. The Holy Spirit was not an option, but an essential reality in the Christian experience.

The Bible says that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. This means that there is nothing incomplete or defective about us. When God made us, the last thing He did was check us out, thoroughly examining and inspecting us before placing His final seal of approval on our hearts. The seal of the Holy Spirit is also the guarantee that we will make it to our final destination.

Bibliography

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