Ephesians Lesson 3

#3 Ephesians 1: 3-8
The Father’s Love for His Son
Why is it important to consider the Father’s love for His Son? Because we need to know this:

EVERYTHING GOD DOES IS FOR HIS SON AND EVERY BLESSING THAT COMES FROM THE FATHER IS FOR HIS SON.

This cannot be explained or comprehended by reading a few verses or even one whole book of the Bible. More than likely, you will have to change the way you read your Bible in order to see this with the eyes of your heart. We have been trained, by a myriad of Bible teachers, to think of ourselves as the center of God’s attention. First, He created earth for mankind, then He gave us laws to live by, then He sent His Son to die for us so we could spend eternity with Him. Although this is all true, God’s primary thought is for His Son, not for us.

God does bless us and He is our loving heavenly Father, but these privileges are the results of our being included in the relationship He has with His beloved Son. Paul uses the phrase in Christ repeatedly – every blessing we have is owing to the relationship the Son has with His Father. Notice how God the Father introduces His Son in Matthew 3. As heaven opened and God’s Spirit came down, He said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found My delight.” And in John 17 Jesus said to His Father, “You loved me before the foundation of the world.” Compare those words to what God said at the creation of the first man, Adam, “very good” (Gen. 1).

How many of us have thought about Adam and Eve in the garden and have wished that we could walk with God, in innocence, the way they did? Would you settle for “very good” if you could have intimacy instead? We are included in Christ – that means we have the same relationship with the Father that the Son has with the Him. The spiritual blessings that Paul talks about in Ephesians are heavenly blessings, they are blessings that Jesus, raised and glorified, receives from His Father and imparts to us. Remember John 17:26, Father…I have made You known to them, and will continue to make You known in order that the love You have for Me may be in them and that I Myself may be in them.

Why does He share His blessings with us? Are they primarily for our own enjoyment? They are not. God the Father includes us in His Son because we cannot belong to Him unless we are “holy and blameless in His sight” (vs 4). I used to think that this verse was telling me to be holy and blameless; therefore, I thought I needed to try harder to obey God. He knows I cannot do this; therefore, He has done all that is necessary so that every one of us can meet His requirements:
• He chose us in Him before the creation of the world (vs 4)
• He adopted us as His sons (vs 5)
• He has freely lavished us grace upon us (vs 6)

God has put us in His Son so that we can have communion with Him, be near to Him, and understand His ways. This gives Him pleasure and ensures that we will enjoy Him as well. The ultimate proof that God loves us as much as He loves His own Son will be demonstrated when we share the glory of Christ in front of the eyes of the entire world. He has promised that His Church will reign with Him as His pure and spotless Bride.

In the book of Romans, the Spirit of God emphasizes the total ruin of man in the depths of his nature; the focus is on man’s depravity and need for redemption. This is not the topic in Ephesians. Here God is acting for His own pleasure and delighting in His own goodness. Sin is already put away, that is not the point of the discussion.

The putting away of sin is not a thing that goes on in my heart, but a mighty work that God brought about in the cross of His beloved Son, on which He calls me to rest, because on it He rests. (Wm Kelly)

We might ask, “How do we enjoy the riches of Christ while we slog around in the muck of this world – suffering with illness, financial loss, emotional pain and the general depravity of our environment?” Keep in mind that Paul is speaking from personal experience; he wrote this letter from prison. He is deprived of the comforts of life, cut off from his friends, beaten, and maligned because He is dedicated to Christ; yet he celebrates the love of the Father for the Son and the “riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding” (vs 8). Paul reaches up to the heavenly realms, and back to eternity past, to anchor us in the blessings that belong to Christ – blessings that cultivate our spiritual growth while we endure life on a fallen planet.