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Spiritual Blessings in Christ
Ephesians 1:3-14
Good News Translation (GNT)
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3 Let us give thanks to the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ! For in our union with
Christ he has blessed us by giving us every
spiritual blessing in the heavenly world.
4 Even before the world was made, God had
already chosen us to be his through our union
with Christ, so that we would be holy and
without fault before him. Because of his love
5 God (a) had already decided that through
Jesus Christ he would make us his children -
this was his pleasure and purpose.
6 Let us praise God for his glorious grace, for
the free gift he gave us in his dear Son!
7 For by the blood of Christ (b) we are set free,
that is, our sins are forgiven. How great is
the grace of God,
8 which he gave to us in such large measure!
In all his wisdom and insight
9 God did what he had purposed, and made
known to us the secret plan he had already
decided to complete by means of Christ.
10 This plan, which God will complete when the
time is right, is to bring all creation together,
everything in heaven and on earth, with Christ
as head.
11 All things are done according to God's plan
and decision; and God chose us to be his own
people in union with Christ because of his own
purpose, based on what he had decided from
the very beginning.
12 Let us, then, who were the first to hope in
Christ, praise God's glory!
13 And you also became God's people when you
heard the true message, the Good News that
brought you salvation. You believed in Christ,
and God put his stamp of ownership on you
by giving you the Holy Spirit he had promised.
14 The Spirit is the guarantee that we shall
receive what God has promised his people,
and this assures us that God will give
complete freedom to those who are his.
Let us praise his glory!
Footnotes
Ephesians 1:5 before him.
Because of his love God;
or before him, and to live in love. God.
Ephesians 1:7 by the blood of Christ;
or by the sacrificial death of Christ.
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Commentary taken from
'The Applied New Testament Commentary'
(Kingsway)
Spiritual Blessings in Christ
Ephesians 1:3-14
God has blessed believers with every spiritual blessing.
Paul doesn't say that God "will bless us"; he says that God
has blessed us already, because we are 'in Christ'
We still must "reach out" and, by faith, accept what has been given.
If we do not exercise faith, we shall receive nothing.
God chose us before the creation of the world.
Think about that! Then there was no earth; there was only God.
First, before anything else happened, God chose us.
We didn't earn our place in God's family. From before the creation
of the world, the one true God has determined the future of
every human being.
In 1 Timothy 2:4, Paul writes that God wants all men to be saved;
and yet, according to many other verses, not all men will
automatically be saved.
There must be no sin or impurity in our lives, because God has
called us to be holy and blameless
God has predestined us to be adopted as his children.
In a spiritual way, believers in Jesus become the
sons and daughters of God.
The main reason God sent His Son to earth was to save men
and women. Without redemption, we cannot be God's adopted children.
This is even greater than His work of creation,
because all God had to do was speak,
but to redeem men God had to die.
Again, from this verse, we can see that we receive forgiveness
through God's grace. God has lavished on us the riches of His grace.
Let us never fail to praise Him.
God's purpose is to bring everything in heaven and on earth
under the lordship and authority of Jesus.
It will happen at just the right time selected by God.
No one but God knows when that time will be.
When Paul wrote this letter, he was sitting in a jail cell.
With his physical eyes he could, see only the four walls
of his cell. With his spiritual eyes, however,
he could see the entire will and purpose of God!
We need to open our spiritual eyes and see the mystery
of God's will. That God sent His only Son, Jesus, into the
world that we might receive forgiveness of sins and become
holy and blameless adopted children of God.
That such weak and sinful people as we should receive these
glorious blessings is a mystery indeed!
Paul was himself a Jew. Paul says that in Jesus we (the Jews)
were also chosen. Paul explains that the Jews were chosen in order
that they might be for the praise of his glory.
From long before Jesus' time, the Jews had been waiting for a
Saviour to come; the coming of a Saviour had been foretold by the
Jewish prophets of the Old Testament.
This is why Paul says that the Jews were the first to hope in Christ.
Now Paul turns his attention to the Ephesians, who were not Jews.
They also had been given the chance to receive salvation
through faith in Jesus.
The proof that the Ephesians had been included in Christ is that
they had been marked with a seal. That "seal" is the promised
Holy Spirit. Paul says the Spirit is promised, because Jesus
had promised His disciples that the Spirit would be sent from God.
In New Testament times, a king would stamp his seal on his letters,
so that a person receiving the letter would know without doubt
that it was indeed the king's letter. In the same way, when any
person has been "stamped with the seal" of the Holy Spirit,
we can know that that person belongs to Christ.
Also notice here that in order to be a Christian
two things are necessary.
First, we must have heard the Gospel.
Second, we must have believed in Christ.
Through the Holy Spirit we can experience a foretaste of heaven.
He is like a deposit, or advance, on the full inheritance
that awaits us in heaven.
Paul shows us that everything begins with God's pleasure and will,
and everything ends in God's glory. And now, therefore,
we must live to the praise of his glory.
Worldly men say: "I will live my life according to my own will
and for my own glory."
But believers in Christ say: "I will live my life according to
God's will and for His glory."
How different is the mind of the worldly man
and the mind of the Christian!
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