Ephesians– overview of 2:11-13; The near and the far – God brings peace to the world.

Sunday June 9, 2019

 

In the previous section, Paul invites us to consider what we were, dead in trespasses and sins, and what we are, saved, raised, ascended, and seated with Christ.

 

EPH 2:1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,

 

EPH 2:2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.

 

EPH 2:3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

 

EPH 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,

 

EPH 2:5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

 

EPH 2:6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus,

 

EPH 2:7 in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

 

EPH 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;

 

EPH 2:9 not as a result of works, that no one should boast.

 

And, because of who we are, saved by grace, we have works to do that only righteous men can do.

 

EPH 2:10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

 

We are heart, mind, soul, and spirit. Now, regenerated, saved, risen with Christ, seated with Christ; the heart, mind, soul, and spirit are all infected and ruled by a divine nature, and the divine nature does divine things. But one aspect of us have I left out, which you wouldn’t be you without it - the body. Gnosticism threw it onto the ash heap, and some sects of Christianity, desiring the way of the flesh while lying to themselves, adopted the Gnostic thought.

 

Yet, the body is as much a part of the new man as the immaterial, inner workings. The present body must be ruled by the fruit of self-control, while the resurrection body will always be willing.

 

ISA 14:9 "Sheol from beneath is excited over you to meet you when you come;

It arouses for you the spirits of the dead, all the leaders of the earth;

It raises all the kings of the nations from their thrones.

 

ISA 14:10 "They will all respond and say to you,

'Even you have been made weak as we,

You have become like us.

 

ISA 14:11 'Your pomp and the music of your harps

Have been brought down to Sheol;

Maggots are spread out as your bed beneath you,

And worms are your covering.'

 

The proud king is in Sheol, and his body, separated from his immaterial nature and spread with maggots in the ground, is still seen comprising his being.

 

2CO 4:16 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.

 

2CO 4:17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,

 

2CO 4:18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

 

2CO 5:1 For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

 

2CO 5:2 For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven;

 

2CO 5:3 inasmuch as we, having put it on, shall not be found naked.

 

2CO 5:4 For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed, but to be clothed, in order that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

 

2CO 5:5 Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.

 

2CO 5:6 Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord — 

 

2CO 5:7 for we walk by faith, not by sight — 

 

2CO 5:8 we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.

 

2CO 5:9 Therefore also we have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.

 

2CO 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

 

ROM 12:1 I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

 

ROM 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

 

John 6:1- 13: What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?    6:2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?    6:3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?    6:4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.    6:5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,    6:6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;    6:7 for he who has died is freed from sin.    6:8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,    6:9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.    6:10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.    6:11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.    6:12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,    6:13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.