A Trinitarian Blessing

Every Spiritual Blessing in Christ
(Ephesians 1:3-14, Preaching: Pastor Nathan Snyder, June 11, 2017)

[3] Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing the heavenly places, [4] even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love [5] he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, [6] to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. [7] In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, [8] which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight [9] making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ [10] as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. [11] In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, [12] so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. [13] In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, [14] who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Every verse in this passage is rich with gospel truth.  I think with texts like this, the danger is that some of us have heard it so many times that could easily read over it and tune it out.  This is not a problem with the text itself.  It is a problem with us.  The fact that the eyes of our hearts see the beauty of these things so dimly simply shows how spiritually dull we can be, which is why Paul proceeds in the verses after this passage to pray for the Christians in Ephesus that the eyes of their hearts would be opened to the glory of all that is theirs in Christ.  May the Spirit do the same for us.  It is good news that the truth of these verses is objective reality.  In other words, it is true for all who are in Christ, regardless of the degree to which we feel it at any given moment.

As I studied this passage afresh this weekend, what got me most excited was seeing how God-centered it is.  Paul starts by proclaiming blessing, i.e. praise, to God for how he has so richly blessed us in Christ.  Three times in the passage he talks about how everything God has done for us in Christ is all to the praise of his glory, especially to his glorious grace, since we are underserving sinners and yet he has lavished upon us such awesome love.  Furthermore, this passage is God-centered in a fully Trinitarian way.  This is what I want to focus our attention on today.  I am convinced that for all who are children of God, meditating on his Triune nature and the involvement of each person of the Trinity in our salvation is like looking out from a mountaintop upon a breathtaking sunrise, or like drinking from a clear, cold spring of soul-nourishing water.  Yet we are only glimpsing the outer edges of God’s glory here.  This is why the promise of an eternal inheritance with God is so amazing.  We will have all eternity to gaze into the endless depths of the Triune God’s bottomless grace and love (Ephesians 2:7).

Blessed by the Father

Paul blesses the Father from whom we have received every spiritual blessing in Christ.  What blessings are these?  He lists some amazing things.  We have been chosen by God before he created the world.  He has chosen us in order to make us holy and blameless before him.  In love, he has predetermined that we would be adopted as sons, meaning we are his children and heirs along with Christ of God’s kingdom.  He has redeemed us, having bought us from slavery to sin and death with the precious blood of Christ and completely and totally forgiven all our sins according to the riches of his grace.  And he has revealed to us that this saving, restoring work will one day be extended to all of creation which will be liberated from death and decay.  This is part of our eternal inheritance.  We will be glorified and will live in a glorified creation with Jesus.  Even now we have the Holy Spirit guaranteeing our eternal inheritance.  God the Father planned all of this for us before he created anything.  Before God created time and matter and energy, he already had chosen us and planned out how he would save us.  He is moment by moment sovereignly working all things according to the counsel of his will.  If we have been predestined for this eternal purpose, then it is most certain.  God the Father is the one who lovingly planned to adopt us in Christ.  The Father planned how he would save us through Christ.  The Father planned how he would work out every detail of history for our eternal good.  And because he now is working all things according to his plan, we can put our hope and trust in him totally and know that we will not be let down by our Father in heaven who loves us with an everlasting love.

Blessed in the Son

Repeatedly throughout these verse Paul writes that all these spiritual blessings we have are in Christ.  The Christ is the eternal Son of God, who took on human nature when he entered the world as the God-man, Jesus.  He has been anointed by the Father to carry out the Father’s saving plan for his chosen people.  Outside of Christ, there could be for us no spiritual blessing because we deserve none.  We are sinners.  At the beginning of chapter 2 Paul writes that we were all spiritually dead, enslaved to sin, and under the judgment and condemnation of God for our sin against him.  We were lost.  God’s commitment to his own holiness demanded that he curse us forever, not bless us forever.  Yet in his love God sent his Son to live the righteous life we should have lived and to die on a cross bearing upon himself the condemnation of God for our sin.  In this way is opened to us the door out of condemnation and into God’s eternal blessing.  There is redemption, total forgiveness, reconciliation to God, and adoption into his family to be heirs with Jesus himself.  All of this comes only through being connected to Jesus.  We must be in him.  There is an exclusive party that only Jesus is worthy to attend.  If we are to attend, we must be his guests.  Are you in Jesus?  There is only condemnation outside of Jesus.  There is only blessing in Jesus.  How does one come, as it were, into Jesus?  We see in verses 12 and 13.  When we put our hope and faith in him.  Recognize that you are sinner whose only hope is in Jesus.  Trust him alone to represent you before God.  Trust that only he is worthy of eternal blessing, and that his death on the cross is enough to pay for your sins.  Trust that in him you will be received into God’s family and find all that you could ever need in him.

Blessed through the Holy Spirit

Paul speaks of the Spirit in verse 13.  The Spirit of God is given to all who trust in Jesus.  He is the down payment of our full inheritance.  The fullness of God’s riches are already ours in Christ, but we do not get to experience it all until after this life.  The Holy Spirit who comes to take up residence in us to renew us guarantees that the fullness of the God’s renewal of us and of all things is yet to come.

This is not the only place Paul speaks of the Spirit in these verses.  Back in verse 3, Paul says that God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing.  What does that word mean?  Is it meant to distinguish the blessings we have in Christ from physical blessings?  I don’t think so.  Our inheritance, which is clearly one of the blessings, includes the very physical experience of living with glorified bodies in a glorified world.  In 1 Corinthians 15 when Paul defends the truth of the coming resurrection, he says that we will have spiritual bodies.  Clearly the word “spiritual” doesn’t necessarily mean the opposite of physical.  I think what Paul means here is that the blessings we have are bestowed upon us through the agency of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit is the one who unites us to Christ and through our union with Christ the Spirit cleanses us of sin, renews us, and begins making us more and more like Jesus until the day when the Spirit completely glorifies us into the image of Christ, and glorifies the whole creation.  The present work of the Spirit in us is the guarantee of the future consummation of that work.  Thus, the blessings we have were planned by our Father, were accomplished by Christ and are now received through being united to him by faith, and are applied to us through the work of God’s Holy Spirit.  All this is for our eternal joy that we might praise the Triune God might be praised forever.