Chapter 2

2021 - I have to speed up some...

2021-2, Long morning on Isa 7,8.  Looks like somewhere I found time to do notes on Eph. 2, so I will read through it pretty fast again this time.

Paul reminds the Ephesians of their former condition - dead in trespasses and sins.  Followers of the prince of the power of the air, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind.  Children of wrath - that is, destined for wrath.  He includes himself with them in this saying "among whom we all once lived". 

2021-2, Vss 1-3 are a single, very long sentence.

2025 - We were just like those on whom we look down.  Good FB post.

The concept of our being "in Christ" and so vicarious participants with him of all that he has done, shows up here again.  In Colossians we were shown to be circumcised because Christ is circumcised, raised to a new life - made new - as he was when he rose from the dead.  Now, in Ephesians, since Christ is seated next to God in the heavenlies, we too are seated there.  We are where Christ is, we are what Christ is in God's sight.  Think of the implications!  What can Christ not ask the Father?  When we ask it is Jesus asking!  This is that same theme.  In Christ is another good study.

2023 - I have remained convinced that this term "in Christ" is profoundly important to understand.  It is treated in great depth in Grudem's Systematic Theology Chapter 43.  See the notes there for confirmation of how important is this little phrase - "in Christ".

Grace.  By grace you have been saved.  Nothing we did accomplished it because it was done before the foundation of the world.  A gift not a paycheck!

2022 - We did nothing to earn salvation in the first place, yet we are in the heavenlies with Christ.  Why in the world would we have to pay the rent of good works to remain there when it was a gift in the first place?  You don't continue to pay for what someone gives you as a gift!

2022 - This verse:

12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. [Eph 2:12 ESV].  As I read it, this says that Gentiles, prior to the New Covenant - and that is a LOT of Gentiles - were only very rarely saved, and that was if they adopted the Law as practiced by the Jews.  God wasn't saving Gentiles at that time, because the Law was the way.  All those pre-history Gentiles went to hell, despite the revelation of God in the stars, because they didn't have the Law, they were not circumcised BY HANDS to show they physically belonged to God, and they did not know Jesus, even in prophecy.  What it comes down to is that they went to hell.  This says a lot about dispensationalism also, I believe.  The dispensation of the Law meant that only through the Law - with its physical requirements - could one come to saving knowledge.  Under the NC, all can do so.

2023 - If God dealt with Israel and everyone else as two separate groups then, why would we not expect him to deal separately in the rest of history?  Jew and Gentile are the cultivated vine meant to produce cultured grapes and the wild vine that produces wild grapes.  They are the cultivated olive and the grafted in olive.

This verse I added in 2021:

7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. [Eph 2:7 ESV]  Where is God in the 21st century?  How can He be here with all the things that are happening?  Look to the kindness he shows toward those who are saved.  Look to the prayers He answers, the directions He leads, the comprehended purpose in the lives of His own.  How much peace, comfort, and serenity do His people have at which the world can only grasp and invent counterfeits?  He is here for His own, and lavishes blessings on us that we could never earn, never deserved, and in fact never even fully appreciate.  This is where you look for God!  In HIS people, not in the lives of the children of wrath, who serve still the prince of the power of the air.  "Looking for love in all the wrong places" comes to mind.  For how much does salvation itself count?  How much evil does one eternally saved soul cancel out in the world?  Show me the scales you use to weigh the righteousness of God toward the undeserving against the consequences of sin in those who rebel against all that is holy.  Show me your criteria!  And we cannot forget the kindness shown, the sacrifices made, the good will injected into daily life by those who serve God.  How will you weight that?  How will you account for it?  What is a cup of coffee worth when offered by a Christian to a homeless man?  How much cruelty in the world does that offset?  There is no math for this calculation, no science to prove how it works.  No one can judge these things but the one who is perfect, the one who knows each and every event - good or bad - that ever happened, is happening, or will happen.  So who are you to ask the potter about what he makes with the clay.  That's what all that is about!!!!

How did I not make this a FB post the first time?  Because now, in 2021-2, I am putting this on the list.  (look at what is in 8,9!  Look at that conclusion in 10!  This all goes together!)

2023 - In vss 1-10, you get exactly nowhere by making a big deal out of the pronouns, which were possibly a big deal in chapter 1.  It would probably be much better, therefore, to make pronouns less important in Chapter 1 rather than trying to elevate them here.  I think I was just on the wrong track with that.

Vs 11 is a "therefore" verse.  Reads like this:

11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called "the uncircumcision" by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands-- [Eph 2:11 ESV]

The "made in the flesh by hands", in my opinion, is the same thing we saw in Colossians as to the Old and New Covenants.  The Old was in the flesh, and the body physically showed the mark of participation in the covenant.  It was all about the physical.  But the New Covenant is spiritual.  Is that where Paul is now headed in Ephesians?  Same idea? 

2021 - This also may be setting up as a reminder to the Gentiles not to be feeling too special about the salvation that came to them.  They shouldn't feel like they are now better than Israel, but remember that they came out of the same slavery to sin and death with which Israel struggled. 

2021-2, I note this time that in vss 12, 13, Paul tells the Gentiles that they previously had no hope.  No part of Israel, so no part of any covenant.  Gentiles until that time had no ready path to salvation.  How many Gentiles, from Abraham to Christ, will spend eternity in hell because they had such limited access to God?  I know, they all sinned, they all deserve hell...but to our way of thinking, it seems unfair.  Especially since the door that was closed was a door that resulted in the action of human hands - the circumcision practiced by Israel.  That was all that kept Gentiles out.  And it was Jesus blood that finally opened the door to Gentiles.

He continues that the Gentiles, under the Old Covenant, had no hope. It was not for them to be included in that covenant.  HUGE MSB note on vss 11, 12.  And there is a lot in it.  I include only a part - the five ways that Gentiles were cut off from God under the Old Covenant:

1, they were separate from Christ, the Messiah, having no Savior and Deliverer and without divine purpose or destiny,

2, They were "excluded from the commonwealth of Israel."  God's chosen people, the Jews, were a nation whose supreme King and Lord was God Himself, and from whose unique blessing and protection they benefited,

3, Gentiles were "strangers to the covenants of promise," not able to partake of God's divine covenants in which He promised to give His people a land, a priesthood, a people, a nation, a kingdom, and a King - AND to those who believe in Him, eternal life and heaven.  (So I see here the separation of the unconditional promises made to Abraham before the Law, and why they are to be kept despite the rebellion of Israel, and how the faith that saves is a separate thing from those promises. 

4, They had "no hope" because they had been given no divine promise,

5, They were "without God in the world".  While Gentiles had many gods, they did not recognize the true God because they did not want Him.

This is an inciteful list of the position in which the Gentiles found themselves.  Wild olives, with little chance - with no chance - of partaking of the promises until AFTER the cultured olive crop failed to produce.  Then we were grafted onto that stock, benefiting from those roots that we had no part of growing.  We should be so thankful that God chose to include us in these latter days, and mourn for all the Gentiles that were never really given such a chance. 

2023 - If Paul had not previously made it clear that under the OLD covenant God treated Jew and Gentile entirely separately and differently, then these verses of explanation drive that point home even more.  Think of it.  Under the Old Covenant, the Gentiles were not included.  There was no promise to them, no "path to salvation" provided for them, but only to Israel.  And now...God has blinded and deafened Israel and we have the New Covenant which is salvation by faith alone, AND we have the church.  There is no reason...hmmm....  The New Covenant is about salvation.  The church is Christ's manifestation of himself in the world.  So it is not "done" when you say that Jews and Gentiles are treated differently, unless you specify that you are talking about...the requirements.  Physical under the Law, spiritual under grace.  Ahh!!!  When we talk about the promises we are not talking about promises to individuals, but promises to national Israel.  The church is in NO SENSE a nation, a sovereign entity in the world that might inherit land.  Salvation is only through Christ - to whom the Law and its ritual always pointed forward, and to whom grace looks backward in thanksgiving.  This is about individuals.  To what under the OC does the church compare?  Shall we say the Temple, the place of worship?  Or the collection of  believers - as the nation of Israel in the OC and as the church in the NC?  Well...isn't that an interesting place to end up.  And just in case this is starting to make sense....the promises to Abraham were made BEFORE the Law.  Much to consider here.  Moving on though.

This verse:

15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, [Eph 2:15 ESV]

This doesn't say the law is set aside, but is in fact abolished.  The ordinances of the Law are no more.  Those rules are all gone.  The physical outward requirements are abolished.  And now, the Law is spiritual, about the inner man, and each of is a living sacrifice, trying to be perfect before God. 

2022 - This also goes along with what I have been thinking as I try to unravel just what exactly was abolished.  I had concluded that the Law is about moral law, dietary law, and sacrificial law.  But the moral law is a sticking point, because it was not abolished  But here, we see that it was the "commandments expressed as ordinances" that were abolished  Commandments included the punishments.  I think of the "go and sin no more" story of the woman caught in adultery.  The penalty was stoning, but Jesus didn't throw the rock, even though he was qualified.  What she had done was clearly still sin, but the penalty prescribed by the ordinances - in writing instead of in the heart - Jesus declined to carry out.  Yes, I know that story's inclusion is very questionable.  But God let it stay in the Bible.  It was not taken out.  It is there for a reason.  Maybe to help me understand this.  Commandments, under the Law, were written as ordinances.  Commandments, under the New Covenant, are written in the heart.  We know.

The Law was physical.  The punishments were physical, the diet was physical, the sacrifices were done with hands, and circumcision - the "seal" of the Law - was physical.  And it separated Jews from Gentiles.  But the New Covenant makes all these things spiritual things - as the kingdom is spiritual at this time.  The physical was abolished, but the spiritual truth underlying the Law remained.

I had never seen this contrast before.  The more you read the word, the more there is in the word.

2023 - "create in himself ONE new man instead of TWO".  UNLESS you are prepared to equate the church and Israel from here forward, you must see this verse as saying that where before, there was only a plan for the Jews and the Gentiles were left out completely, now that Law is gone, the plan of redemption is the same for all who call upon Him.  Under the old, there was circumcision and uncircumcision.  There were two, and one was, for all intents and purposes, excluded.  Now though, there is neither Jew nor Greek.  There is no longer national Israel and the rest of the world, there is only the kingdom!  That's it!  The church and the Kingdom are NOT the same, even Grudem points out that fact!  So under the OC, there was national Israel, and under the NC there is the kingdom of God.  The church is something else.  Something new, something different than what came before.  So...I might be able to go with a statement that says the promises made to Israel under the OC will be granted to the Kingdom under the NC.  Physical promises accruing to a spiritual nation.  Who is in the Kingdom if the Kingdom is not the church? 

2023 - From my notes on Grudem Chapter 44:   6. The Church and the Kingdom of God, p. 1058.  Starts with a definition by George Eldon Ladd.  It is an interesting definition, and includes the following:  The kingdom is primarily the dynamic reign or kingly rule of God. So the Kingdom includes what its King brings to pass.  In the Kingdom of God, the NATION of Israel - saved by GRACE under the NC, or "sealed" as in Rev 7, can receive the promises WITHIN THE KINGDOM, while the CHURCH, within the Kingdom, is in heaven post-rapture!  Right now this makes perfect sense to me, and I am moving on before I get confused again!

Vs 16 says Jesus' work on the cross reconciled us both to God - that is, both Jew and Gentile.  He died for both.  This verse:

18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. [Eph 2:18 ESV]  Access is not physical, at the mercy seat, but is now through the Holy Spirit inside each saved person.  Access is direct, and as available to Gentiles as to Jews, and a more direct access - through the spirit and not a building built with hands - than ever before. 

2022 - Vss 13-16 tear down the basis of anti-Semitism entirely.  There was previously some justification for jealousy toward the Jews, resentment, bitterness, even hatred.  Only they, in the whole world, could be saved.  But that is no longer the case because of the blood of Christ and because the dispensation is no longer physical only - that is, sort of by birthright - but is now entirely based on the spirit of man and the spirit of God.  Peace should reign between Jew and Gentile.

((((I suspect that this "access in one Spirit" may come back to mind when we hit the verse about baptism.)))

The language through the rest of the chapter is about "building" on the chief cornerstone and the apostles, a whole structure, a holy temple.  All of these things are metaphors for the kingdom now extant on the planet.  A spiritual kingdom, built, but not of stone and not with hands.  So no physical seal of participation is necessary (no circumcision).

((I like the phrase "Abolished the law of commandments expressed in ordinances", creating one new man in place of two (Jews and Gentiles).  The Jews circumcision set them apart in the world as part of the only chosen nation.  Now that all are one, no physical mark need be carried because all are now one in Christ.  Every time I think about this more truth pours out!)))

This verse:

22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. [Eph 2:22 ESV]  What a great verse for the process of sanctification.  The Spirit inside us works on us, changes us, perfects us as much as is possible and commensurate with our own commitment to change, to make us a suitable dwelling - a temple if you will - for God to dwell in, and the cornerstone of that temple is the finished work of Christ.  Not everything that ever happened in the Temple was perfect.  Yet God dwelled there.  We also are not perfect "tents", but God dwells in us also.

2023 - Note also the metaphorical language applied to the Kingdom, which is spiritual so that it can be tied back to national Israel.  A dwelling place - as in God dwelt with his people Israel in the desert, but now dwells inside each person in the Kingdom!  Oh, this is working better and better! 

2023 - But now, I need to think about what exactly are the distinctives of the church.  What is it, why is it?  The "visible" manifestation of the Kingdom through the assembly of its citizens?  Is the church the "distribution center" of blessings from the King to all mankind?  He "routes" his Kingdom blessings through the "trucking company" that is the church?  That's not a bad theory...