The Resurrection: November 2005 Archives

If you asked me how many total Bible studies I have attended in my life, I’m not sure I could give you an accurate answer given the fact that I have been involved with so many of them over the years. If you asked me to recall as many particular discussions with the texts they were centered upon as I could, all you would succeed in doing is reminding me of how very little of actual Bible study sessions I really remember. But if you asked me if I remember not only sitting in a room where Ephesians 1 was studied but also what the Bible study leader said about that chapter, I would quickly answer an emphatic yes. Why? Because his comments on Ephesians 1:3 reflected what I believe is a widely held unbiblical worldview—a worldview that unintentionally undervalues God’s good creation.

After reading Ephesians 1:3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,” the Bible study leader said something like this: “The blessings that God has given Christians are primarily spiritual as opposed to physical.” Now let me ask, is that true? Are the blessings God has given us in Christ primarily immaterial as opposed to material? Someone might answer, “Well, that’s what the text seems to be teaching. Paul says that these blessings are ‘in the heavenly places.’ Being chosen in the Messiah (1:4), predestined for adoption through the Messiah (1:5), and having forgiveness through his blood (1:7) are all non-physical blessings. So it seems that your Bible study leader was correct when he said that the blessings that God has given Christians are primarily spiritual rather than physical.” Well, let’s see if that understanding of Ephesians 1:3 squares with the book of Ephesians as a whole.

Let me first offer a paraphrase of Ephesians 1:3 that I think will help clear the fog away as we move forward: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every blessing in the heavenly places that pertains to the Spirit.” I think this paraphrase helps us see that Paul is not using the word “spiritual” in the sense of that which is immaterial. Rather, Paul is using the word “spiritual”, as he often uses it, to refer to something that pertains to or is given by the Holy Spirit (cf. Romans 1:11; 1 Corinthians 12:1-12; Ephesians 5:19; 1 Peter 2:5). So we should not be too quick to think of these blessings as primarily being of an immaterial sort.

Another phrase that proves significant in Ephesians as it relates to this issue is “in the heavenly places.” I think our tendency is to read the phrase “in the heavenly places” and immediately think of it in non-physical terms. But consider what Paul says in Ephesians 2:19-20. Paul prays that the Ephesians might know:

What is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might [20] that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places…

Paul says that the Messiah who was raised physically from the dead has been seated at the Father’s right hand in the heavenly places. Think about this, there is a physical, material presence in the heavenly places! Paul then goes on to say in Ephesians 2:6 that God has “raised us up with [the Messiah] and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” What we learn here is that God’s intended future for us, a physical resurrection/transformation, is bound up with the resurrected Messiah who is now physically present in the heavenly places. Now if that is not one of the primary blessings to which Paul is referring in Ephesians 1:3, I don’t know what is.

Let’s see if this is even what Paul has in mind in Ephesians 1:3-14. Verse 3 states that every blessing in the heavenly places has been given to us in the Messiah. And then Paul repeats the phrase “in him” (i.e. in the Messiah) throughout the remainder of this entire section. The point of this repetition is to establish that every blessing the Father has given us he has given us in or through the Messiah. And now notice how this section closes:

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, [14] who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory (Ephesians 1:13-14).

Now here is the question: What is this inheritance that we are still waiting to acquire possession of? I believe we find an answer to that question in Ephesians 4:30.

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

What is “the day of redemption”? It is the day when our salvation is brought to its completion. It is the day when we experience the redemption of our bodies, when our lowly bodies are transformed to be like the Messiah’s body of glory (Romans 8:23; Philippians 3:21). It is the day when we receive renewed bodies that are like the Messiah’s renewed body which is currently in the heavenly places.

It seems to me that we must at least conclude that the climactic blessing of Ephesians 1:3, unto which the Holy Spirit has sealed us, is the renewal, the transformation of these bodies of ours that are subject to decay and ultimately death. The climactic spiritual blessing is not an immaterial blessing. It is a profoundly physical blessing that is bound up for us in the one whom the Father raised from the dead, namely, the Messiah. Elsewhere, Paul says that when God’s Messianic people experience the redemption of their bodies, all of the created order will share in our freedom, that is, creation itself will be “free from its bondage to decay” (Romans 8:20-23).

A gospel-centered view of the world values the created order because it understands that God will one day renew the entire created order. This is the climactic blessing of which Ephesians 1:3 speaks and for which we joyfully wait. If you are looking for a worldview that really appreciates and values the physical world, you’ll find it in Christianity. No other religion comes close to valuing the physical world like Christianity does.

Earlier today my brother Stephen sent me this picture of his three children kneeling down beside Daniel’s grave. Melissa and I can hardly believe he died three years ago tomorrow (Saturday). One portion of Scripture I have meditated on the past few weeks to put our experience with Daniel in its proper perspective is the second half of Colossians 1:18. “Jesus is the beginning, the first born from the dead.” It's significant that just a few verses earlier Paul stated that “Jesus is the firstborn of all creation” in that it is by him that all things were created (Colossians 1:15-16). Verse 18 tells us that Christ is not only “the firstborn of creation” but also “the firstborn from the dead.” He is not only the one by whom all things were created at the beginning. Christ is also the one through whom all of his people will some yet future day be resurrected from the dead. In other words, Christ is also the one through whom the saints will experience re-creation when they are bodily raised from the dead. Daniel’s resurrection life is now hidden with the resurrected Christ in God (Colossians 3:3). But when the resurrected and exalted Christ, who is Daniel’s life, appears, then he also will appear with Christ in glory. When that day comes, Daniel’s currently hidden resurrection life will no longer be hidden. His lowly body which now rests in a South Carolina grave will be transformed to be like the resurrected Christ’s body of glory (Philippians 3:20-21). So as we think about the death of our son tomorrow, we will seek to set our minds on things above, that is, where “the firstborn from the dead” is, seated at the right hand of God(Colossians 3:1).