A verse-by-verse explanation of the chapter.
God Is Not Finished with You Yet!
An overview of the principles and applications from the chapter.
Tying the chapter to life with God.
Historical, geographical, and grammatical enrichment of the commentary.
Suggested step-by-step group study of the chapter.
Zeroing the chapter in on daily life.
“I must die or get somebody to die for me. If the
Bible doesn't teach that, it doesn't teach anything. And
that is where the atonement of Jesus Christ comes in.”
Dwight L. Moody
In chapter 2, Paul tells the Ephesian Christians: You were once spiritually alienated from God; but now, because of God's grace, you have been spiritually united with him. As Gentiles, you were once spiritually alienated from Israel, but now you have been spiritually united with them into a living spiritual temple of God.
When James Calvert went out to the cannibal island of Fiji with the message of the gospel, the captain of the ship in which he traveled tried to talk him out of going. “You will risk your life and all those with you if you go among such savages,” he said. Calvert's magnificent reply was, “We died before we came here.”
In that sense it is possible to be dead even though you are alive. Corrie Ten Boom's life offers a modern example of this principle. Her remarkable story is told in the book The Hiding Place. She lived with her family in Holland just before World War II broke out. The Nazi military machine was beginning to press in on European Jews like the jaws of a vice. Jews who had any chance were fleeing Germany and other neighboring countries, but the German military machine was on the alert to capture any fleeing Jews. In response, an underground railroad was formed among compassionate people to assist the Jews to escape. Corrie Ten Boom's home was part of the underground system. Eventually, she and her sister were arrested and condemned to a German concentration camp for their part in assisting Jews.
Her life in the concentration camp was terrible beyond belief. In any civilized country, not even animals would be legally treated the way she and the thousands of other people in the camp were treated. Her sister, of weaker constitution than Corrie, died in the camp. Though on any given morning when she awoke, she was breathing and her heart was beating, Corrie, herself, was as good as dead. Only a short time stood between her and the gas chamber. Then one day, due to a clerical error, she was inexplicably freed. Snatched from the jaws of death, she was given her life back again.
Winston Churchill once said that there is nothing quite so exhilarating as being shot at and missed. That must have been how Corrie Ten Boom felt. Death shot at her but missed.
In that sense we've all been shot at. We have all died, spiritually; but God has given us a second chance. While we are dead, we may respond to his gift of life and receive new spiritual life. Chapter 2 of Ephesians tells the story.
Our Spiritual Union with God
MAIN IDEA: God's grace gives you life and unites you with him and with people from whom you are alienated.
Our Spiritual Death (vv. 1–3)SUPPORTING IDEA: We were all once spiritually dead and were objects of God's wrath.
2:1. In chapter 1, Paul enumerates God's spiritual blessings for us and then prays that we might be able to comprehend them. One of those spiritual blessings was forgiveness of sins and redemption by Christ. In chapter 2, Paul explains that great truth more specifically: we were spiritually dead, separated and alienated from God, because of our transgressions and sins. Later in the chapter, he talks about the consequences of this spiritual death, but for now he just establishes it as fact.
2:2. Paul describes the way we lived while we were in this spiritually alienated condition. We followed the ways of this world. That is, we lived according to the non-Christian value system. This value system is created and energized by Satan (the ruler of the kingdom of the air). This does not mean that non-Christians realize that their values are created and energized by Satan. In fact, most would probably deny it. Nevertheless, Satan, in his craftiness, places the things in front of us that we, in our sinful condition, find attractive, and, therefore, pursue as though they were our ideas. The spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient is probably not the ruler of the kingdom of the air as the NIV translation suggests but rather an impersonal atmosphere created and energized by the ruler. Satan's kingdom encourages us to have ungodly values, attitudes, and actions, much the same way a spirit of enthusiasm at a ball game might encourage us to embrace the attitudes and actions of a sports fan. We cheer, yell, jump up and down, and otherwise act in ways that we would not if we were not under the influence of the spirit of enthusiasm. Under the spirit of Satan's kingdom we act in disobedient ways we would not normally follow.
2:3. Specifically, our Satanically energized value system motivated us to gratify illicit desires. As a result, we were objects of wrath, meaning God's wrath, just like all other non-Christians.
The wrath of God comes on us in this life in two ways. At times we receive the natural cause-effect consequences of violating God's principles. Galatians 6:7 tells us that we reap what we sow. For example, if we are sexually immoral, we may contract a sexually transmitted disease. If we are violent or angry, we may receive the hatred and resistance of those around us. At other times God may bring his wrath on us specifically, in direct divine judgment. Such instances would be difficult to prove, but examples of such temporal judgment can be found in the Bible (Rom. 1:18–27; Acts 5:5; 1 Cor. 11:30).
In addition to the wrath of God coming on non-Christians in this life, the wrath of God will certainly come on them after death. Hebrews 9:27 says, “Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.” For the non-Christian, this is a terrifying thing. Second Peter 3:7 reads, “The present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.” Ephesians 2:1–3 presents a hopeless picture for the non-Christian.
Our Spiritual Life (vv. 4–10)SUPPORTING IDEA: Because of God's rich mercy, he has provided salvation for us by grace through faith, not through our good works, so that we cannot claim credit that is his.
2:4. Against this bleak backdrop of the hopelessness of the non-Christian, Paul presents heartening news. God's mercy restrains his wrath. He refrains from punishing us even though we are sinners. Why? This mercy flows out of his great love for us. He desires to do good for those he loves, not evil. As a result he has done three things for us.
2:5. First, he made us alive with Christ. Our sins had made us spiritually dead. They separated us from God. The resurrected Christ overcame death. God lets us share in Christ's life. In so doing he caused us no longer to be spiritually alienated from himself. Why give us life when we deserved death? Because we earned it? Surely not! We deserved the death we got. We are alive because of God's grace, a concept we will explore further in verse 8.
2:6. Second, he raised us up with Christ. Life in Christ came because we experienced Christ's resurrection in the spiritual realm. We were raised up from our sin death and given opportunity for new life. Still facing life on earth where Satan reigns, we live with Christ as part of his kingdom.
Third, he seated us with him in the heavenly realms. That is, he has made possible and certain our resurrection from the dead and has mysteriously positioned us in heaven where Christ dwells (see 1:20). To be seated with Christ in the heavenlies is a figure of speech meaning God considers us worthy and destined to be seated with Christ in heaven when we get there. God has decided to do it, and it is as good as done. We just have to wait for a few years until it happens. The significance of being seated with Christ is much the same as being seated at the head table of a banquet where there are many important people. It is a privilege and honor, and it marks you as one of the important people. We will be important in heaven.
How will we be important? We will share with Christ in his rule as king. We will be seated on thrones (see Rev. 3:21). In fact, we already exercise power with Christ over the powers of this age. We can live lives reflecting Christ's kingdom, not Satan's. We are no longer dead in trespasses and sin. We are alive in Christ, sharing his power and authority, representing him in the battle with Satan where victory is assured through the resurrection.
2:7. God's intention in this, in addition to the natural response of love which he has for us (v. 4), is to show for eternity the magnitude of his grace toward us. The word show actually means “display.” In the same sense that an artist might display his canvasses to reveal his skill, so God displays his redeemed children to the universe to demonstrate his grace. The grace shown in his children seated in heavenly realms is the same grace or kindness shown in the death and resurrection of Christ. Once supremely in Christ, God showed his loving attitude to the world. From now on he continues to show that attitude in the lives of his people whom he has delivered from the ways and ruler of this world and given protection and power in the heavenly realms.
2:8. In verse 5, Paul made the parenthetical statement, it is by grace you have been saved. Now, in verse 8, he picks up that idea and elaborates on it. Grace carries with it the idea of benevolence being bestowed on someone without that person having merited it by his actions. God was not required to offer us salvation. He would be justified in condemning all people to eternal separation from himself. In spite of the fact that our actions bring deserved judgment upon ourselves, God offered us an escape. He didn't have to, but because he loved us, he wanted to. That is grace, and that is what saved us, or delivered us, from eternal judgment. God's escape belongs to him and to his initiative alone. No part of it can be credited to you. The whole of salvation, the grace as well as the faith, is a gift of God.
He chose to make salvation possible in this way. He handed salvation to you. You did nothing but stick out a hand and accept the gift. Faith is exactly that. It is trustfully accepting from God what he has provided without totally understanding what you are receiving. Faith is giving up on being able to provide what you need for yourself and letting God give what he alone can provide.
2:9. Paul stressed this point almost redundantly. You have done absolutely nothing to earn salvation by being or doing “good.” God's plan of salvation by grace places all humans on the same footing. No one may boast or point with pride to personal accomplishments in the realm of salvation. No person has done anything in this arena. God has done it all.
2:10. As we, his children, stand on display throughout eternity, we will be recognized as God's workmanship. “Workmanship” (poiema) is not just a result of effort or labor. It is a result of artistic skill and craftsmanship. If we could earn salvation by our own good works, we would not be a work of God but a work of our own selves. That cannot be and will not be. We were created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God determined before we were ever born. God has prepared a path of good works for Christians which he will bring about in and through them while they walk by faith. This does not mean that we do a good work for God. It means that God does a good work through us as we are faithful and obedient to him. God is at work. In faith we join him in that work to the praise of his glory (see 1:6,12,14).
In summary, we were spiritually dead and the object of God's wrath. God, motivated by his love, extended mercy to us and allowed us to be delivered from his wrath by grace, through faith. God has accomplished this without our help; therefore, all the good that is done through us will be recognized as his work and not our own.
Our Spiritual Union (vv. 11–22)SUPPORTING IDEA: We once were separated from God and his people the Jews, but now, in Christ, both Jew and Gentile have been united with God as well as with one another.
2:11. The Ephesian church seems to have experienced friction between Jewish and Gentile Christians. That would explain why Paul goes into a discussion of the relationship between those two groups at this point. In verse 11, Paul shows the Gentiles' hopeless condition before salvation by contrasting them with the Jews. God's plan of salvation in the Old Testament came through the Jewish nation. That still didn't mean that all Jews were truly redeemed. It only meant that the message of redemption came through the Jewish nation. The Ephesians, as Gentiles, did not have natural access to that message of salvation. Paul contrasts the conditions of the Jews and Gentiles to show the Ephesians how significant their salvation is.
Circumcision was a source of pride for the Jews. It was a visible sign of their historic relationship with God. Therefore, it was a term of derision—a religious slur, if you will—for the Jews to call the Gentiles uncircumcised. The Jewish nation had forfeited their special position with God, because, while they were physically circumcised, their heart attitude was not one of submission to God. So Paul says the Jews were called to circumcision, which is performed in the flesh by human hands. He implies that, while they were physically circumcised, their heart was not, as it were, circumcised (submissive to God).
2:12. Paul emphasizes that the Gentiles were:
Jesus was the Messiah, the Savior of the Jewish nation. The nation of Israel had been given promises (covenants) by God that they would have a Messiah. This gave them hope and afforded an avenue to God for them. Not being Jews, the Gentiles did not have these advantages. A Gentile might convert to Judaism; but then he would no longer be a Gentile but a converted Jew. Therefore, true Gentiles were utterly without hope even with their many religions and many gods. The one God did not acknowledge them because they did not acknowledge him.
2:13. God, because of his mercy and love, did not leave them in this hopeless condition. Christ abolished the distinction between Jew and Gentile. All people are now considered the same before God. His death on the cross made this wonderful thing possible.
2:14. God wants peace to be both horizontal and vertical. That is, he wants Jews and Gentiles to be at peace with one another; and he wants both of them, now reconciled to each other, to be at peace with him. Christ is the one who gives us peace with God, for he himself is our peace. Mutual animosity and hatred toward each other erected a wall of separation between Jews and Gentiles. Christ abolished the wall by making them one before him.
2:15. The Jews kept the law, with its commandments and regulations. Gentiles did not. This created a barrier between them. Jesus' death satisfied the law and therefore eliminated it as a barrier. Since neither Jew nor Gentile had to obey the law to find salvation, the means of distinguishing between the two kinds of people vanished. Again, this created peace between hostile parties.
2:16. God's purpose included more than simply uniting two parties previously at war. He wanted the new creation of one party now united horizontally to find vertical union with God. The cross destroyed both the human hostility and the hostility between people and God. This is true reconciliation—overcoming human barriers and breaking down walls that separate people from God.
2:17. Paul quoted Isaiah 57:19 to show the Word of God expected the Messiah to bring reconciliation of Jew and Gentile. Those who were far away are the Gentiles. Those who were near are the Jews.
2:18. Jesus, the Messiah, did preach the message of peace to Jews and Gentiles. In the cross he reconciled them to each other. He sent the Holy Spirit to all who believe. The Spirit opened the door to God's immediate presence. Here we see the Trinity's work in salvation. The Father developed a plan of grace for salvation through faith. The Son carried out the plan in his ministry to Jew and Gentile and in his death on the cross. The Spirit became the means of immediate access to God the Father.
2:19. Redeemed Jews and Gentiles are no longer estranged from each other but are fellow citizens of the kingdom of God. Race or nationality make no difference. All are redeemed people through Christ's cross. God's people represents the NIV interpretation of the Greek hagion, literally, “holy ones.” Other interpreters see the holy ones as Israel, Jewish Christians, the first Christian generation, all believers, or the angels of heaven. The contrast may be between who the Gentiles were—aliens—and who they now are—kingdom citizens along with those who have always been kingdom citizens—Jews. In that case they have extended the meaning of holy ones so that it is no longer limited to Jews but also includes Gentiles, now meaning all believers. The reference could maintain the discussion of being seated in the heavenly realm and allude to the angels as other inhabitants there. Most likely, it is a general reference to people of God from all generations and uses the contrast of the Gentiles' previous state to enhance the understanding of their present state. Alienated foreigners with no citizenship papers, they have joined the people of God with heavenly citizenship. Not only are they citizens of a heavenly kingdom, but they are also members of a spiritual family, God's household.
2:20. Paul switches to the metaphor of a building and declares that both Jews and Gentiles are “stones,” as it were, of a building. The building rests on a solid foundation—the faith, testimony, and life of Christ's closest followers, his apostles. It also rests on the foundation of prophets. These are usually taken as New Testament prophets who proclaim and explain the Word of God. It may well include also the work of the Old Testament prophets in laying the foundation on which Christ built.
The key is not the foundation, however, but the cornerstone, a term taken from Isaiah 28:16 and probably interpreted in light of Psalm 118:22. The question is which building stone is meant: the cornerstone to which all other stones of the foundation are connected, or the capstone or keystone which is the last stone placed in the top of the structure over the gate. Isaiah 28:16 apparently refers to the foundation or cornerstone, but Psalm 118:22 may refer to the top keystone. Ephesians can be interpreted in light of either imagery, but the setting of Christ as head over all things (1:10,20–23) may point to the keystone interpretation as the most appropriate here.
2:21. The stones are forming a living, spiritual temple to glorify the Lord. In the Old Testament, the presence and glory of God inhabited a literal stone building. Now God dwells not in a stone building but in the hearts of believers. Christ is the unifying factor that takes the separate stones and creates a temple. This temple is holy, set apart for God. In this temple God receives worship and praise. The hearts of believers is thus the basic worship place in God's kingdom on earth.
2:22. Paul concludes with a pointed reminder to the Gentile Ephesians. They had no room or reason for self-pity. God included them. In Christ they are being built into God's temple along with the Jewish Christians. All together they form one worship center where God lives through the presence of his Spirit.
MAIN IDEA REVIEW: God's grace gives you life and unites you with him and with people from whom you are alienated.
We might be awed to meet the president of the United States or the queen of England, or a great statesman or scientist or educator. To meet God, however, is so far beyond our imagination that we may not have as great a sense of awe in meeting the Creator as we do in meeting one of his creatures. Not only have we met him, but we have also been spiritually united with him, having been made one of his children. This fact must become the one truth that rivets our attention to heavenly realities while we traffic in earthly affairs. It gives us the hope we need to persevere in a hostile world.
Of hope, C. S. Lewis once wrote:
Hope is one of the theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not, as some modern people think, a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.
The apostles who brought about, on foot, the conversion of the Roman Empire. The great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at heaven, and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you will get neither” (Mere Christianity, New York: Macmillan, 1952, 118).
PRINCIPLES
APPLICATIONS
God Is Not Finished with You Yet!
What does it mean to be God's workmanship? I vividly remember attending, almost back-to-back, showings of the works of two major artists. The first, at the University of Notre Dame, was a display of the etchings of Rembrandt. The second was a display of most of the major works of Georgia O'Keefe at the Chicago Art Institute. Each well-known artist has a distinctive style that sets him apart from all other artists. After learning about a given artist, you often can readily identify many of his works.
If you see weird little color cubes that look like pieces of a puzzle put together wrong, you know you are looking at Pablo Picasso. If you see limp objects draped like wet laundry over foreboding landscapes, you know you are looking at Salvador Dali. If you see figures that are stretched up two or three times their normal height, you are looking at El Greco.
You can tell much about an artist by looking at his art. You can observe Van Gogh's gradual progression into insanity by looking at his succession of several self-portraits painted over a period of years. Look at Michaelangelo, and you see an idealist. Look at Norman Rockwell, and you see an optimist. Look closely at the art, and you will discover the artist. You and I are works of art; and we will be on display, in a sense, throughout eternity, to manifest to the universe the glory of God.
Now, catch yourself, resist the temptation to say, “If I'm a work of art, it isn't going to be much of a display!” The first reaction which most of us have is to denigrate ourselves. Let's look at it in another way that may help us to believe that it is true. Rather than seeing yourself as a painting, imagine yourself as a marble statue. You've heard at least one of the versions of the old story about when a sculptor was asked how he created his stone masterpiece of Robert E. Lee (or whoever it was), he said, “I just got a big block of marble and chipped away everything that didn't look like Robert E. Lee.”
A sculptor will tell you that he sees his figure in the finest detail before he ever begins to chip at the stone. In that sense, he does just chip away everything that doesn't look like what he is creating.
We are, in a sense a big block of marble when we become a Christian. God, the Great Sculptor, knows, down to the last detail, what he wants that block to look like before he begins to work on us. We, however, do not usually have a clear sense of the Sculptor's goal. We look at ourselves after God has begun to shape us but before he has finished his work. We see that the neat, clean block of stone has been chipped and roughed up, but we do not see the finished product yet. In this incomplete state, we conclude incorrectly that that is all there is, that what we are now is all we will ever be.
You say, “This isn't beautiful. This isn't a work of art.”
But God is not finished with you yet.
You reply, “This big corner over here doesn't look like it belongs.”
But God is not finished with you yet.
“This part is chipped and rough!”
But God is not finished with you yet.
“This part over here hasn't even been touched!”
But God is not finished with you yet.
“This part needs to be sanded, smoothed, and polished.”
But God is not finished with you yet.
To every imperfection we see, the answer is, “God is not finished with us yet.” It won't be there when he is finished. We'll be perfect, complete, flawless. A tribute to the glory of our Creator. The universe will take one look at us and cry out, “Glory to God!”
That's what it means to be God's workmanship. But we must be patient. God is not finished with us yet.
O Lord, it is beyond our comprehension what you have done for us, not only in forgiving us of our sins but also in making us your spiritual children. We understand enough to know that of ourselves we are not worthy. Thank you for the honor. Thank you for the hope. Thank you for the joy.
A. Dead (v. 1)
“You were dead in your transgressions and sins….” What does it mean to be dead? Obviously, Paul was not referring to physical death because physically dead people do not read. Paul meant spiritual death, and yet this concept is not defined in Scripture. If we judge the nature of spiritual death by the nature of physical death, we might think that spiritual death is a cessation of being. Yet that could not be the case, because people were spiritually dead even while they were physically alive. We have to put the pieces of the puzzle together from a number of different Scripture passages to get a fuller understanding of what it means to be “dead.”
The fundamental characteristic of spiritual death seems to be “separation from God,” not “a cessation of being.” Romans 5 gives us the soundest clue: “At just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
“Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (vv. 6–11).
When Jesus gave us new life, we were reconciled. Spiritual death, then, must be a state of being unreconciled, or separated, cut off, spiritually estranged from God. The penalty of that unreconciled state is eternal separation and destruction. Romans 3:23 states that all sinned, and Romans 6:23 states that the penalty of sin is death.
The solution is that Christ, who did not need to die, since he was sinless, died for us (Rom. 5:8). In doing so, he conquered death and ascended into heaven with power over death (Heb. 2:14–15). Jesus breaks the power of death over his children. His children are placed in Christ (Rom. 6:3–4), experience death with/in him (Col. 2:20), and pass from death into life (John 5:24) in him. We still die physically, but spiritually we are born again and made spiritually alive in Christ at the moment of our salvation (John 3:16).
B. Transgressions (v. 1)
“Transgress” (paraptoma) means, literally, “to stumble,” “to slip,” or “to fall”; and thus its primary reference is to a false step, a blunder. It could be used to describe someone losing the way and straying from the right road, or it could be used for a man failing to grasp and slipping from the truth. Transgression is failing to take the right road when we could have or missing the truth that we should have known. It is the failure to reach the goal we ought to have reached. It can refer to something unintentional or unpremeditated. Nevertheless, it brings spiritual death.
C. Sins (v. 1)
“Sins” (hamartia) is an archery term which literally means “a missing of the mark.” Sin is the failure to hit the target of God's holiness. Sin is not merely murder or rape or criminal activity. Sin is also a failure to do all the good we should have done. This concept of sin includes all of us and validates the truth which Paul wrote in Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” This understanding of sin ought to convince the best of persons that he cannot get to heaven by being good, because Romans 6:23 says that “the wages of sin is death.”
In his Daily Study Bible, William Barclay writes:
Is a man as good a husband as he might be? Does he try to make life easier for his wife? Does he inflict his moods on his family? Is a woman as good a wife as she might be? Does she really take an interest in her husband's work and try to understand his problems and his worries? Are we as good parents as we might be? Do we discipline and train our children as we ought, or do we too often shirk the issue? As our children grow older, do we come nearer to them, or do they drift away until conversation is often difficult and we and they are practically strangers? Are we as good sons and daughters as we might be? Do we ever even try to say thank you for what has been done for us? Do we ever see the hurt look in our parents' eyes and know that we put it there? Are we as good workmen as we could be? Is every working hour filled with our most conscientious work and is every task done as well as we could possibly do it?
When we realize what sin is, we come to see that it is not something which theologians have invented. It is something with which life is permeated. It is the failure in any sphere of life to be what we ought to be and could be (Galatians and Ephesians, Philadelphia: Westminster, 1959, p. 96).
Seen in this light, all of us have to admit that we are all sinners.
D. Mercy (v. 4)
Mercy is a character quality of God which motivates him to refrain from inflicting punishment or pain on an offender or enemy who is in his power. God offers to extend mercy to anyone as long as that offer of mercy does not interfere with another of his character qualities. For example, God is also just, and he will not extend mercy if it sacrifices his justice. In a legal sense, mercy may involve acts of pardon, forgiveness, or the canceling of penalties. In each case mercy is experienced and exercised by a person who has power or authority over another person. The person under authority has no claim of deliverance.
Because of his mercy, God extends to everyone the offer of salvation in Christ (John 3:16), which allows them to escape the legal penalty of death under which they sit and will continue to sit if they choose to refuse God's mercy.
E. Grace (vv. 5,7–8)
Grace is the root characteristic of God which produced our salvation. We cannot understand chapter 2 unless we understand grace. Grace is defined as “undeserved favor freely bestowed on humanity by God.” God's mercy led him to offer humanity the gift of salvation even though humanity sinned and fell away from God. Sin caused spiritual death and separated each sinner from God for eternity. God so loved the world (John 3:16) that he was unwilling to allow man to continue in this separated condition. Salvation from sin and death was created by God's grace. Humans accept it through faith in Jesus and what he accomplished on the cross, not by doing something by themselves. In salvation God forgives sin, causes a person to be born again, and brings that person to himself forever.
F. Faith (v. 8)
God's part in salvation is grace. Our part is faith. Even the faith to believe is a gift of grace (Eph. 2:8). Without faith, we cannot be saved. Without faith, it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6).
Some interpreters suggest that faith is believing in spite of the fact that there is nothing to believe. Or worse, faith is believing in spite of evidence to the contrary. These are inadequate, wrong definitions of faith. Biblical faith is not merely a matter of intellectually agreeing with truth. The Bible says that “the demons believe … and shudder” (Jas. 2:19). Biblical faith means “believing God and acting accordingly.” It means accepting as true the biblical message that God in grace has provided salvation for you. It means acting on that belief by committing your life to Jesus, letting him be your Savior and taking your own hands off any attempt to win or earn salvation. It means continuing to act on that belief by letting Jesus be Savior of every minute you live, letting him guide in every decision you make, letting him determine what is right and what is wrong for you.
G. Citizenship in Israel (v. 12)
God did not choose Israel to the exclusion of all the other nations. God chose them in order to reach all the other nations. All along, God intended to use Israel as an evangelistic instrument to bring the other nations of the world to himself (Gen. 12:3). In Psalm 67, David invoked the blessing of God on Israel: “May God be gracious to us and bless us, and make his face shine upon us” (v. 1). Then David stated his reason for this request: That “your ways [may] be known on earth, your salvation among all nations” (v. 2). Then David encouraged the people and creation to praise God. In the final verse he returned to the original theme: “God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth will fear him” (v. 7).
God chose Israel and asked them to be obedient to his commandments. When Israel was obedient to his commandments, God promised to bless them abundantly (Deut. 28:1–14). When they were so incredibly blessed by God, the other nations of the earth would look at Israel, recognize that the hand of God was upon them, see the goodness of God, and desire to know the God of Israel because of his blessing on Israel.
This was a wonderful system. God would draw the entire world to himself by blessing his chosen people. This is why he chose Israel—not to exclude all other nations but to reach all the other nations of the world. Of course, Israel was not very faithful in obeying God for any length of time. The strongest spiritual period in Israel was during the latter part of David's reign and the first part of Solomon's reign. During this time, also, Israel was greater, wealthier, and more powerful than at any other time in its history. Its spiritual impact was also greater. In fact, the queen of Sheba came to Solomon in 1 Kings 10, just to see the glory of the kingdom and hear the wisdom of Solomon. When she saw it, she burst out in spontaneous eulogy to God (v. 9). This was the way it was supposed to work. People were to see the blessing of Israel and turn to God.
H. Holy temple (v. 21)
The Old Testament presented physical reality designed to picture a spiritual reality to be realized in the New Testament. For example, the tabernacle and temple of the Old Testament were designed to picture spiritual redemption in Christ. In the Old Testament, God gave his revelation to Israel and asked them to obey it. If they would, God promised to pour out on them staggering physical blessings: agricultural, military, economic, health, and every other way. In the New Testament, God gave his revelation to the church and asked them to obey it. If they would, God promised to pour out on them staggering spiritual blessings: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control—the fruit of the Spirit.
God was revealing himself to the world through physical glory in the Old Testament and is revealing himself to the world through spiritual glory in the New Testament. In both cases, God's intention was to give a picture to the world of who he was through the blessing of his people. The resultant goal was that the world would want to know him because of what they saw of him in the lives of his people.
In both the Old and the New Testament, the focal point of God's blessing is the temple. The Old Testament temple was a stunning building. A fairly small building, the central part of the structure measured only thirty feet wide by ninety feet long, a mere 2,700 square feet. Many personal homes are larger than that. Yet some estimates say that it might cost more than four billion dollars to reproduce today. The inside was lavishly appointed with incredible amounts of gold, carvings, expensive wood, and marvelous tapestries. The walls were constructed of the finest stone. Two astonishing bronze pillars in front highlighted what may have been one of the most expensive buildings per square foot that has ever been constructed. First Kings 10 records that when the queen of Sheba saw all this splendor, she swooned (“she was overwhelmed”). The idea is that the people of the world would get some idea of the grandeur, glory, and power of God by looking at his physical temple, the physical site of his presence on earth.
The counterpart to the Old Testament temple is the New Testament temple, which is the totality of all believers in Jesus. Instead of God investing the New Testament temple with his physical glory, his intent is to invest the New Testament temple with his spiritual glory. Instead of gold and cedar and ivory and tapestry, he has lavished his New Testament temple with love, joy, and peace. The idea is that the people of the world would get some idea of the character of God by looking at Christians, his spiritual temple, the spiritual home of his presence on earth.
A. INTRODUCTION
B. COMMENTARY
C. CONCLUSION: GOD IS NOT FINISHED WITH US YET