In Ephesians 1:3, Paul tells us God the Father has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”
A couple notes on this jam-packed verse:
1. Why are the blessings called “spiritual” blessings? The point is not that they are immaterial or non-physical. They are Spiritual blessings with a capital “S.” The blessings are brought into our lives and delivered to us by the Holy Spirit. The blessings are “in Christ” but the Spirit is the agent of our union with Christ. The Spirit bonds us to the Savior. In John 16, Jesus said “the Spirit will take what is mine and give it to you.” The Spirit gives us Christ’s benefits by uniting us with Christ. As John Calvin said, so long as Christ remains outside of us, all he did and suffered is of no value to us. Christ won every blessing for us in his death and resurrection; but now the Spirit must deliver those blessings to us. Without the delivery mechanism of the Spirit, Christ’s hard-won blessings remain like an unopened Christmas present or an undelivered letter. We need the Spirit to bring Jesus and his blessings into our lives and make them ours.
2. Why are the blessings in heavenly places? Don’t we need the blessings “down here” on earth instead of “up there” in heaven? The blessings are in heavenly places because the blessings are found in Jesus and Jesus is enthroned in heaven (1:20; cf. 6:9). Our whole salvation is contained in Jesus, and so if Jesus is in heaven, the blessings are there too. That means we must “seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God” (Col. 3:1). But there’s more: Ephesians goes on to show that in some mysterious and Spiritual way we cannot fully grasp, believers are also located in the heavens right now. We are a heavenly people; our citizenship and our lives belong to heaven. The Spirit unites us on earth with Jesus in heaven so that we are actually in heaven with him. In Ephesians, we find the gospel makes the future present; we not only look ahead to a future resurrection and ascent into heaven, we have *already* been raised with Christ and seated with him in heavenly places (2:5-6). The church is a heavenly people:
— We are enthroned in heaven (2:6).
—We have access to the heavenly sanctuary in prayer/worship (2:18, 3:12).
—We are a new and heavenly humanity, put on display in heavenly places so that angelic and demonic powers can marvel at God’s wisdom manifested in the church (3:10).
—Finally, our warfare is in heaven; we do not primarily wrestle with flesh and blood enemies, but with “spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places” (6:12).
So, yes, our blessings are found in heavenly places because that’s where Jesus is. But we are there too – we are seated on a heavenly throne, showcased in heaven as the revelation of God’s manifold wisdom, and we wage war in heaven against demonic powers. In and through the church, we can see how God is already uniting things on earth and things in heaven in Christ Jesus (1:10). The union of Christ and his bride/body, indeed, the union of heaven and earth, is God’s master plan for the creation and history, and we can already glimpse how it is coming to fruition (1:9-10).
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In Ephesians 1-3, Paul develops the doctrine of the gospel, the new reality brought about by Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension. In chapters 4-6, Paul develops the culture of the gospel, a way of life consonant with the new reality introduced by Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension.
In chapters 4-6, Paul will develop a comprehensive map of Christian civilization, covering everything from speech to sex to song. He deals with work/economics and the household (including marriage and parenting). He contrasts the culture of paganism with the culture that flows out of the new reality announced by the gospel in 4:17ff. He shows Christian culture is marked by thanksgiving, purity, forgiveness, productivity, diligence, generosity, and kindness. As I said, it’s a comprehensive sketch of what Christian culture looks like on the ground. It’s a wide-angle look at the breadth of discipleship.
As an ecclesiocentrist, this is what I find interesting: When Paul moves from the doctrine of the gospel to its application, he *starts* with the church. The “therefore” of 4:1 means, “in light of all the truths just presented, this is what you should do…” Paul *begins* unpacking the culture of the gospel by describing life in the church as an institution – her unity, her ministry, her mission, her call to maturity. This is because the church is the alpha form of Christian civilization. The church is the tip of the spear. The church is the leading edge of Christendom. If we are going to form a Christian culture in the wider world, it’s going to start in the church and flow out from there. That’s what the pattern of Ephesians suggests. Pastors equip their people through the ministry of the church to construct a comprehensive Christian society (4:12). The structure of Ephesians 4-6 is ecclesiocentric – but this should come as no surprise, given that Paul has already situated the church at the center of God’s masterplan for creation in 1:9-10 and the center of Christ’s kingly rule in 1:22-23.
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We were made by God, for God, to be filled with God. Paul prays accordingly in Ephesians 3:18-19. Paul’s prayer is a reminder that nothing less than God can satisfy us. Paraphrasing Augustine, there is a God-shaped void in the heart of every one of us, and so we can only be satisfied when our hearts are filled with all the fullness of God. Only as God fills our emptiness can we be who he made us to be.
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The book of Ephesians is a near-comprehensive manual of ecclesiology, a handbook to guide churchmen in how to understand and live out their membership in the glorious body of Christ. The book of Ephesians lays out the identity and calling of the church, the gifts that belong to the church, and the church’s way of life.
But Ephesians is not just ecclesiology. It’s also eschatology. It declares the new reality brought about by Christ’s exaltation. We do not just *see* the world differently; the world really is different now that Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. He is enthroned in heavenly realms and we are seated there with him. Ephesians works out the implications of this new reality for culture. The church is God’s new humanity, an eschatological people in union with the risen and ascended Christ, living out transformed lives in our speech, sexual ethics, work, and family life.
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