Ephesians Series

by Athol Walter

Part 19 - Ephesians 2 - An Overview

Before we start into the second chapter of this great epistle, I would like to briefly recap the first chapter.

Recap of Chapter One

After the opening greetings, we had in verses 3-24:

a. the Will of the Father
b. the Work of the Son
c. the Witness of the Spirit.

And in that section, which we could call the threefold charter of the church , we saw that this was a peculiar calling in that it went back before the foundation of the world, and also had its sphere of blessing in a special place called the super or above heavens. These two points alone immediately mark it off from every other calling named in Scripture.

Then in verses 15-19 Paul told the Ephesians (and us) that he prayed continuously for three things for them viz. that they might know the hope, the inheritance and the power associated with this calling.

The chapter concluded with Paul showing that the power that energises us is the same power that God used, not only to raise the Lord Jesus from the dead, but to seat Him at the Father's right hand far above all principality, power, might and dominion in heavenly realms. In this position Christ has all things under His feet, and is the HEAD of the church which is His body, this church constituting His fulness, as He in turn is the one who fills all.

As we contemplate the incredible position to which the love and grace of God has raised us in the Lord Jesus Christ, let us not forget an even more important point. Verses 19-23 of ch. 1 also tell of the wonderful exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ to this pre-eminent position in the universe. Don't make the mistake of thinking that by taking His place at the right hand of the Father, He simply resumed the position He had before He condescended to become flesh and dwell among us. The glory He now has is the glory of the Redeemer and the Mediator. Philippians 2 tells us very clearly that this glory was given to Him as result of His complete obedience and utter faithfulness, to the Father's Will. And this glory He can and will share with some of the redeemed.

We find a hint of this in Isaiah 52:13, "Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high." But that is only the half of it. We find the next part in 53:12, "Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." That last verse is nothing more nor less than a summary of the great passage of Christ's humiliation and exaltation in Phil. 2.

So He will share the glory He has now as the Man Christ Jesus, the One Mediator. But the glory that was His before the Incarnation was His as God the Word, and that cannot by shared by any creature. When praying to His Father the night before He died, He said "And now O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was" (John 17:5). No creature sharing there, only the Father and the Word become flesh.

I know how difficult it is for some to accept these statements about members of the Body being seated far above all with Christ at the right hand of the Father, but these grand truths, mindblowing as they are, are written by our inspired apostle for our acceptance by faith. I echo Paul's prayer and pray that the Holy Spirit will indeed enlighten us to see and believe what is written.

Chapter 2 – an overview

I intend now to present something of an overview of this next chapter before we start to look at it in detail. If you consult the outline of the book which I gave you at the beginning of the series, you will see that the themes Paul is teaching often ride across the chapter breaks.

We have a case in point here between chs. 1 and 2 which I will come to in a moment. It does bring up the point, however, that we must keep in mind when reading and studying the Bible. Don't let the chapter breaks stop you reading on. If you stop just because you have reached the end of the chapter, you will often miss material that is connected with what you have just read. So always have a little look past the break, just in case. As it happens, the end of ch. 2 does coincide with the end of a section.

Just in case any reader may wonder how I can be so cavalier about God's Word as to say that we can ignore chapter breaks, let me say that the chapter and verse divisions in our Bibles that are so useful to us, were not part of the original Scriptures. They were added centuries later to aid us in finding our way through this very large collection of writings called the Bible.

At 1:19 Paul, as we have seen, speaks about the mighty power of God that was needed to raise Christ from the dead. We know from other references that the Lord had to be quickened before He was raised. To be quickened is old English for being made alive. The verse that speaks about the quick and the dead is referring to the living and the dead. It does not mean that if you are not quick when crossing the road, you're dead!

So the first verse in ch. 2 tells us that God also quickened us, or made us alive. It comes again in verse 5: Even when we were dead in sins, (God) hath quickened us together with Christ. Following this, 2:6 tells us that we have also been raised with Christ.

Then in 1:20, we are told that Christ was set or seated at God's right hand. And 2:6 finishes the threefold union by saying that we have also been seated with Him in those super-heavenly places spoken of earlier.

As an aid to memory and understanding, we could say of the section from 1:19 to 2:7 that we have A THREEFOLD UNION of the believer with Christ. It involves being:

1. Quickened with Him
2. Raised with Him
3. Seated with Him.

It seems that right throughout this epistle things come in threes, and in the next section, verses 8-10 we have THREE WORKS.

1. Not of works
2. We are His work
3. Unto good works.

The next section is verses 11- 19, where we have a THREEFOLD PEACE.

1. Those far off made nigh - peace.
2. The Two made one - peace.
3. He came and preached - peace.

And, finally, in verses 19-22 we have another THREEFOLD UNION.

1. Citizens together
2. Framed together
3. Builded together.

That is the framework we will use as we study this chapter. Let me emphasise that these outlines and headings etc. are the work of frail men, and are to be received as such. We (those who publish these articles) call on our readers to exercise the same spirit that the Berean Jews did of old (Acts 17), who listened to Paul's preaching with open ears and minds, and then went home and checked their own Bibles to see whether they had been told the truth or not. We could not have a better example to follow.

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