Short Summaries of

Sermons on Ephesians

by Rev. Ralph Allan Smith

Spiritual Blessings In Heavenly Places

(Eph. 1:3b)

Paul thanks the Triune God for the blessings of salvation. He gives thanks for the Father's planning salvation (1:3-6), the Son's executing salvation (1:7-12) and the Spirit's applying salvation (1:13-14). In these words of worship we confront the most profound issues of Christian doctrine, beginning with the expression in verse three "all Spiritual blessings." Unless we understand these words in the context of Biblical theology, we not only miss vital Christian truth, we invite the kind of dangerous misunderstanding that has sometimes characterized the church in the past. The words "Spiritual" and "heavenly" have been interpreted to mean "non-material," as if Paul were writing in the context of Greek philosophy rather than the Old Testament. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The Holy Spirit's Blessings

"Spiritual blessing" is not "unearthly" blessing. Nor is it "non-material" blessing. "Spiritual blessing" is blessing from the Holy Spirit. There is a contrast with the blessing of the old covenant, but it is not, as is often thought, a contrast of material, physical prosperity verses non-material, "spiritual" prosperity. The old covenant was fleshly in the sense that Adam, the head of the old covenant was created a physical man on a physical earth. There is nothing inherently evil about that. Nor did the finitude of Adam, any more than his "fleshliness," imply, necessitate, or lead to sin. But the old creation was intended from the beginning to be temporary. It was created to pass away when its original purpose was accomplished. Nor did Adam's fall undo God's plan. The physical world of the first creation will still be brought to its original creation goal because Christ has come and succeeded where Adam failed.

Paul gives us one of the keys to Biblical theology in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 where he speaks of the similarities and differences between Adam and Christ. He teaches a theology of racial (as in "human race") representation. The first Adam is the father of the old race of man. We are his children physically, but even more important than that, we are his children by covenant. The old covenant was with the whole race of Adam through its representative man. It was the covenant of the first world, the physical world God created in Genesis one. This world was created to be temporary. When Adam and his sons fulfilled the creation plan of God, there would have been a new world. The original Sabbath of God not only taught men to rest after their labor, it gave them a view of history as six "days" of work ending in the seventh "day" of everlasting rest.

If Adam had submitted to God and kept the covenant, I assume that after a certain time, he would have been "promoted" to higher status and his heirs would have continued to work, until the historical task was done. Perhaps after 1000 years of labor a man would have ascended to heaven in a cloud, like Christ did and, it seems, like Enoch also did (Gen. 5:24; cf. also Elijah, 2 Kin. 2:11). At any rate the first covenant and the old creation under it were "fleshly," and temporary. The creation aimed at a higher level, a development to more mature principle, the principle of the Spirit.

Paul points to this in 1 Corinthians 15, when he tells us that the fleshly bodies is like a seed that is sown to become something with a different body (15:36-49). These verses make clear that man's original body was to be the fleshly seed of a Spiritual body which would come later, pointing to a new covenant and a new world. The new world of the new covenant is Spiritual, that is, determined by the Spirit of God. "And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening Spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is Spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is Spiritual" (1 Cor. 15:45-46). We will not know the fullness of what this means until we have our "Spiritual" resurrection bodies. But we already now enjoy the beginning of the blessings of the new world because Christ, our covenant Lord, has entered heaven and poured out the Spirit of God on us.

The Old Testament prophesied of the gift of the Spirit as the essence of the blessings of the Messianic age (Isa. 32:15ff.; 42:1ff.; 44:3ff.; 48:16; 59:19-21; 61:1ff.; Eze. 36:26ff.; 37:14; 39:29; Joel 2:28ff.). When John the Baptist came, he announced that "the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Mat. 3:2) which included the message that Jesus would come and baptize Israel "with the Holy Spirit, and with fire" (Mat. 3:11). After Jesus resurrection also, Jesus taught about the kingdom of God and commanded the disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they received the "promise of the Father," namely the Spirit of God (Acts 1:3-5). John also refers to the Spirit as a blessing that could only be given after Jesus was glorified (John 7:39). When the Lord of the new covenant Himself had attained the blessing of the covenant by defeating Satan and dying for our redemption, He rose from the dead, ascended to heaven and bestowed the blessings of the new covenant on the Church. This is what Paul means by the phrase "all Spiritual blessings," the complete fullness of new covenant blessing. The gift of the Spirit of God is the essential gift of the new Christian age. To have the gift of the Spirit--which all Christians have because they are in Christ--is to have blessing of the new covenant.

In Heavenly Places

But why does Paul speak of the "heavenly places"? Because that is the realm of these Spiritual blessings. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The heavens were created as the model and blueprint for the earth. When the earth was dark, unformed and unfilled, the Spirit of God came down from heaven and hovered over it (Gen. 1:2). During the six day creation, God gave light, order, and creatured things to replace the original immature situation. The blueprint was heavenly--down from heaven--and Spiritual--the Holy Spirit. The creation story points to the same truth that Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 15 that the original world was the seed of something greater to come.

The heavenly world was created mature. It is a realm of light because the glory of God shines perfectly (cf. Rev. 22:5). There is perfect order also from the beginning, and a multitude of angels. The angels are not a race descended from an original pair, like man. They were created as a complete group, but individually unrelated by racial ties. They, like the heavenly world, were mature at birth.

When God revealed Himself to Moses, He showed Moses the heavenly pattern for Moses to copy in the symbolic representations of the tabernacle (cf. Heb. 9:23). David was given a heavenly blueprint for the temple (1 Chr. 28:19) and Ezekiel ascended into the glory cloud of God to view the blueprint for the new symbolic temple of the restoration covenant (Eze. 1-3; 40-48). We also reflect this basic perspective of Biblical theology when we pray "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." This prayer does not mean simply, "May men do Thy will as perfectly as the angels do." It presupposes that heaven is the model for earth and is a prayer for conformity to that model. In the final chapters of the Bible, John sees the new Jerusalem "coming down from God out of heaven" (Rev. 21:2).

Jesus ascension to the heavenly places was thus necessary for the coming of the new covenant. Sitting on His heavenly throne, He bestows the blessings of the new world on us here. But since we are covenantally "in Him," it can also be said of us that we are in heaven. Indeed, this is one of the distinctive themes of Ephesians (Eph. 1:3, 10, 18-20; 2:6; 3:10, 15; 4:10). Paul is speaking of this in Philippians when he says that we are citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:20) and in Hebrews when he says that we have a "heavenly calling" (Heb. 3:1) and that we have come to the "heavenly Jerusalem" (Heb. 12:22-23).

We are God's heavenly people because we are His Holy Spirit people. In Christ we have already entered into the blessings of the new world. By giving thanks for this blessing with a mature understanding of its meaning, Paul teaches us about salvation. He also teaches us to thank God for these blessings so that we will learn who we are. The more that we thank God for the blessings of the new covenant, the more our lives will conform to the new covenant pattern of righteousness.