Ephesians 1.15–23
A sermon preached at Geraldton Anglican Cathedral 22 May 2022
For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
When you look at a particular passage of the Bible, first ask yourself the question, “What is this passage about?” It may mention many things, but there is something the Bible writer is saying about something, and that is what he wants you to understand. If I’m preaching, that should be the subject of my sermon. Our problem today is that Paul is saying more than one thing—which should mean we ignore part of the passage and focus on the other part. But I will break my rule, and try to make sense of it all. I have given you a copy so you can follow it. When you first read, it may seem like a lot of words—like Paul is getting religious again. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are diamonds here.
It starts off with Paul telling those he is writing to, what he prays for them. This is interesting to know, because it tells us what Paul thinks is important. It is what he prays for you and me. You may want to compare it with what you pray for your friends and family members.
First, he wants us to have knowledge and understanding of God’s will and plan. Look at what he says!
I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him …
There is knowledge that God has revealed; actually Paul is about to pour out a whole lot of it in this letter. Some of it he will describe as mysteries hidden for ages, but now made known. Paul wants us to have the wisdom and insight to understand these things. He is praying for us to have a spirit that wants to do this—a particular mind-set, and this can only come through the working of the God’s Holy Spirit. In other words, Paul is praying for you—that you may have a Holy Spirit-enlightened mind to understand the things of God.
Look again!
I want you to have the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know …
He is praying for us that we may know—but know what?
I pray that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe …
There are two things here, though it looks like three. Firstly, he wants us to know what a great future is ours if we believe in Jesus. He describes this as our inheritance. He wants us to know what a glorious and great thing is coming to us in the future. Let me put it crudely: he wants you to know how rich you are going to be in the world that is coming. That’s a nice thing to know!
The second thing he want you to know is about God’s power.
What Christian doesn’t feel his or her weakness in the face of the system at work, the political forces in the country, the politics of the church, the forces at work in the school playground, the prevailing culture, the unexpected accident or sicknesses? Don’t we long for power? But power is a tricky thing. One must always ask, power to do what? I had a friend whose face was blown apart by a Japanese hand grenade when he was fighting in New Guinea. There was an American plastic surgeon visiting his army base at the time; plastic surgery was a very new specialization. The surgeon went to work and put him back together. I last saw him when he was in his nineties; I have a picture of him on my wall. You would not have known there was ever anything wrong with his face. The power of a bomb to blow a person’s body apart is different to the power of a surgeon to put it back together. We all long to be powerful to be able to do the things that we want to do, but what does God want to do? Look carefully at what Paul prays here. It is not that we should be powerful, but that we should know the greatness of his power. And what is that power going to achieve? It is at work on us—”unto us” not “in us”. Paul prays for God’s power to work on us that we are guided and preserved through every trial to reach our destination, which is this hope of our calling, this glorious inheritance he has spoken about. The full power of God is at work making sure you get to glory—and Paul want you to know that: “the immeasurable power of God towards us who believe.
Both these things he prays for add up to knowledge. He wants us to know how good the future is for those who follow Jesus, and he wants us to know God’s power is going to get us there. He is not praying that we all have good health, influential jobs, good income, a happy holiday or anything like that. These are the things that mainly fill our minds. If he came to call on you, I am sure he would pray with you about some of these things, but they are not what ultimately matters. Paul knows that some of us won’t have good health, some of us will struggle with poverty, but these things change their perspective when we realize that God is preparing a wonderful future for us, that we are going to come into unimaginable happiness and prosperity.
This could mean that God’s power is actually frustrating you in what you passionately want to happen. Why? Because he sees that would lead you away from the great things he has in store for you! This is a hard pill to swallow, but it is true, and sometimes you can see it, even in this life. Early in my time in South Africa, the college I was leading was running out of space. There was a perfect building next door which would meet our teaching needs. I wanted to buy it, and was sure I could raise the money. The trustees of the denomination said no. They were worried the college might drive the denomination into debt. I did everything I could to persuade them, to no avail. It was early days and they did not trust my judgement. I had to pull back, or risk some important relationships. I was heavy of heart, seeing clearly that we were locking ourselves into a no-growth situation. We were. We could no longer operate in our little campus. We were forced to move from our beautiful location to a run-down neighbourhood nearby. We sold our four properties and bought two, but … we could expand. Within fifteen years we had 46 properties and a campus, and had become one of the strongest Anglican theological colleges in Africa. I can only think that God was frustrating my plans, because he had a bigger one.
You will not see it for yourself until Jesus comes again, but it is real. What we have now is God’s Word, and we have to trust it. And Paul asks that the Holy Spirit would be working in us to give us understanding of it, and insight into it.
And now Paul introduces a new subject, as he often does when something he has said reminds him of something else—the gospel, no less.
Power—that power …
… is like what he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.
We have just had an election. Someone has wanted to get to the highest place, and all the parties were on full power, some of them to get their leader there, and others to get the highest place they could. Of course, it was power against power, as it often is. And that is also how it is with God. There were powers working against Jesus, determined to bring him down. They thought they could get rid of him by killing him. But God defeated them. God raised him from the dead. God then exalted him beyond every power in the universe—because it was not just human powers he was up against. He is now controlling the stars—have you thought of that? He rules the waves, he can stir up a tsunami—or prevent one. The power to get you into the kingdom is the same power that got Jesus to the highest place in the universe. Jesus is Lord, and if he is your Lord, then know that you are in good hands. Jesus is Lord: that is the gospel, and that is what Paul has veered off to declare. But there is another third subject, and it is the real reason we are looking at this passage today. Because this is the first time in this letter that Paul mentions the church, and what he says is quite startling.
And he put everything under his feet, and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who in everything and in every way is being fulfilled. That is my translation.
The Church, the Ecclesia, we have seen, is the community of all those who in every age and in every land acknowledge Jesus for who he is: God’s king for the human race. What Paul tells us here is that everything Jesus is doing in his pursuit of affairs in the universe is for the sake of this community which we call the Church. I spell it here with a capital “C” to distinguish it from all the local churches and denominations. It doesn’t correspond to any human organization; only God knows those who are his. God put everything under Christ’s feet. That means nothing escapes his control. This means the war in Ukraine, the election yesterday, what happens at Geraldton Hospital, and the local Atheists Club—if there is one—is under his control, just as much as this church and every church, and what is happening in your family. It is all under his authority and control. This is a hard thing to accept, and raises a whole lot of questions, but that is what he is saying. God raised him from the dead, so he is also in total control of the dead, and who dies, and when, and the whole angel world—the good ones and the evil. And now Paul tells us that he is controlling it all for the sake of his community, the Church. This is mind-blowing. There was a chap in my church who was into prayer. He asked me could he come to the church on a Friday night and pray. He didn’t mind if he was alone, but he wanted to do it, so I gave him the OK. He used to start about 7.30pm and go all night, and people joined him. I went once—not the whole night, but between 11 and 12 a chap wandered in off the street. He had had a bit to drink, and I guess he couldn’t sleep, and saw the light and a bunch of young people sitting around, so he came in to see what was going on, and sat with us for a while. He sat quietly for about half an hour trying to figure it out. The he stood up and said, “You guys have got to be bloody mad,” and walked out. I think if you wandered in today and listened to what I was saying, you would feel the same. It would be total lunacy, if it wasn’t true.
The Church is Christ’s body, and he is controlling everything with it in view. That is what Paul says. There is a translation problem in verse 23. Most Bibles say something like, “God appointed him head over everything for the Church, which is his body, the fulness of him, who fills everything in every way.” What it could mean that Jesus fills everything, I am not sure, though in Ephesians 4.10 Paul says that God raised him up to fill the universe. But that’s a bit different to him filling all the bits.
What I think it says—the Greek is not hard to translate, it’s just that the translators can’t believe Paul could be saying what it says. What he says is that the Church is “the fulness of him who in every way is being fulfilled.” But how can the Son of God, the second person in the Godhead be fulfilled? Is he somehow unfulfilled and needs more? But this overlooks that the Son of God became a human being, that God appointed him as King, that he had to struggle and die to establish his kingdom, that he is even now building this Church that the gates of Hades will not defeat. God has made this human Christ the head over all things. But a head without a body is incomplete. A king is not a king without his people and a land. And it makes even more sense when you bring in chapter 5 where Paul speaks of marriage. A lover is not complete without his beloved. And a man and a woman becoming one flesh foreshadows Christ becoming one body with his bride-to-be, the Church. So it is true: Christ is being fulfilled in every way—totally. And it is the Church which is the body of which he is the head. When we get to the book of Revelation it is there in black and white: “I saw the Holy City, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, like a bride adorned for her husband.”
If you hang around Anglican churches for long you will hear people described and “high church” and “low church”. They would probably put me in the category of “low church”; they would probably think I was down at the bottom of the barrel, because I don’t go in much for the ritual and the robes. I do however, have an eye for beauty and have appreciated being in this cathedral. I think it is a masterpiece; it gives me a good feeling every time I walk into it. But that is not the point. I want you to know that I have a very high view of the Church, even the church which meets in someone’s garage—because Paul did, and Jesus does.
Michael Griffiths was a missionary leader in South-East Asia. He wrote a book called Cinderella with Amnesia: an interesting title. He thinks the church has forgotten what it is; and we have. Indeed, Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale seems to me to be a thinly veiled allegory of the gospel story. The girl, taken for granted and mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters, who stays at home sweeping the fireplace, while her high and mighty sisters trip off to glorify themselves at the king’s ball! Cinderella is rescued by the fairies who dress her up and send her along, but she must leave before midnight when the spell will wear off. She has such a good time dancing with the prince, that it is almost midnight when she remembers, and flees. But she leaves behind one of her glass slippers. The slipper is the clue. How will the prince identify his beloved? How will Christ identify his bride? God has marked every one of his children with his Holy Spirit; that’s how. The prince seaches his kingdom, and eventually finds the girl who fits the slipper, and makes her his bride, and they live happily ever after.
The Church may be the humble house-servant now, suggests Michael Griffiths—and Hans Christian Andersen too—but she is destined to become the consort of the King of the Universe. This is indeed the stuff of fairy tales. But what a tragedy if we forget who we are!
It is easy to do. The church today is not much to look at. We are lucky to have a beautiful cathedral; most Christians struggle to put a roof over their heads. We are also lucky to be in a country which tolerates us, though sometimes only just. What is it like to live in a Muslim society where Christians are seen as an inferior species, where it is regarded as such a shame for one of your children to marry a Christian, that to kill them is approved? In Paul’s day Christians were regarded as temporary residents in a world that belonged to citizens; as an unpleasant superstition you had best keep clear of. I remember my grandmother’s disappointment and anger when I decided to become a minster. “What a waste!” she said.
How easy it is to forget. That is why Paul prays that our minds may be enlightened with the knowledge of our future, and the mighty power at work to get us there.