May 9, 2002 -- THE ASCENSION OF OUR LORD
Ephesians 1:15-23
Title: “Christ’s words.”
Color: White
The message of this section of the letter is: continue to continue. After sketching the entire history of God’s dealings with humanity, really praising God for sending Christ and his Spirit, the author then reports how he ceaselessly thanks God for both Christ and for those who believe in him and then launches into petitionary prayer, asking God’s help that they may continue growing in the faith and reaping its rewards, even while still here on earth.
In verse seventeen, May God give you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of him: The author has just given thanks to God for those who are true disciples of Christ, those who have faith in Christ and love towards their fellow Christians. Now, he uses his own knowledge of the faith as the basis for petitionary prayer to God for the continuation of God’s grace and even more growth in its mystery, growth evidenced by more love. “Wisdom” here means “wisdom from God,” not human wisdom, a grace not a personal accomplishment, the kind of wisdom revealed by God through his Spirit. “Revelation” means “insight” into the mind and ways of God. “Knowledge” carries its biblical meaning of “personal” knowledge, more than factual knowledge. Thus, all three words mean essentially the same thing: the quality of life God himself enjoys. This is a prayer because this quality is a gift from God, without which no growth is possible.
In verses eighteen and nineteen, hope…riches…surpassing greatness: These verses, though put in petitionary form, and those that follow, are really more appropriate to contemplation than petition. The author has thought long and hard about the Christ event and has studied Paul’s writings both carefully and prayerfully. He contemplates the whole mystery of Christ and then turns it into a petitionary prayer to God on behalf of all Christians, members of Christ’s body. This is a prayer for growth in spiritual understanding, what is meant by “May your hearts be enlightened.” In the Bible the heart is the seat of understanding and will. It is also the seat of feelings, but feelings are to be moderated by will. “Inheritance” protects the truth that what a Christian receives, all the privileges are concomitant responsibilities, are given not earned, to be shared as gifts to others, and should evince humility not arrogance.
For us who believe: The just mentioned thoughts tally with what Jesus taught: “All things are possible to him who believes” in Mark 9: 2). Mark 6: 5-6 even goes so far as to say that Jesus “could do no mighty work there because of their unbelief.” God requires that human faith meet his grace with an open willingness or else it remains ineffective. Belief for Jesus did not mean belief in statements about God or about Jesus, but simple and unqualified trust that God and Jesus can do what they say they can do or will do and empowers the believer to do likewise. Nothing is too great for God.
In verse twenty, raising him from the dead: The greatest and clearest evidence of God’s power is what God did in raising Jesus from the dead, a unique occurrence in all of history. No other religion makes such a claim. In the Old Testament God’s greatest show of power was the Exodus event, deliverance of Israel from the slavery of Egypt. In the New Testament it is the Christ event, whose high point was the resurrection, deliverance of God’s people from the slavery of sin and death. This is the fundamental conviction of Christian faith, filling every book of the New Testament. Christians believe that, in spite of his death on the cross, Jesus is effectively present in the personal lives of his followers. He is alive in their midst, indeed within their very bodies. They do not think of him as one who belongs to the past. They speak of him as one who is present. He is the transforming factor in all-Christian experience. If God can do that, there is no limit to what he can do.
Seating him at his right hand in the heavens: On the one hand, Jesus is very much alive on earth among and within Christians. On the other hand, he is with God in heaven, directing the course of history and ruling over the universe or universes, whatever the case may be. The doctrine of the resurrection emphasizes Jesus’ presence here on earth and the doctrine of the ascension or exaltation, emphasizes his presence in heaven. Both truths must be kept in mind simultaneously; hence the reason for the author’s prayer for “wisdom and revelation” leading to knowledge of him. Luke is really the only New Testament writer who distinguishes between these two, really continuous, aspects of the Christ event, speaking of the ascension-exaltation as subsequent in time to the resurrection, doing so to clarify both the immanence and transcendence of Christ, though, in reality, they are simply different ways of expressing the same truth, using spatial language with all its limitations. This, “sitting at God’s right hand” sounds strange to students of science. However, it is merely an anthropomorphic way of speaking about God, as though he were an eastern potentate with his prime minister at his side, available for getting advice and ready to carry out orders. This metaphor is taken from Psalm 110: 1: “The Lord says to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool’.” Thus, it means the highest place of honor and power.
In verse twenty-one, far above every principality…: This verse emphasizes the total supremacy of Christ. People then believed in spiritual powers other than God. Some were good such as angels; others were bad such as devils or demons. They were referred to as “principalities,” “authorities,” “powers,” “dominions” and many other names. They are imprecise terms and do not really have any sharp distinctions between or among them. Here, they seem to stand for evil powers or forces, however, good ones might also be included. Whatever they are, wherever they are, under whatever forms they function, all of them are subject to Christ.
And every name that is named: People believed that if you knew the name of a god or goddess, a power or a principality, that would give you an edge. You could get the attention of that divine being and have an “in.” In that context, calling upon the “name” of Jesus Christ gives one power over these powers.
Not only in this age but in the one to come: “This age” would be the present age; “the age to come” the unending future. Christ is supreme over all.
In verse twenty-two, and he has put all things beneath his feet: These words paraphrase Psalm 110: 1 “…till I make your enemies your footstool” and bolster the previous point with a Scriptural reference.
And gave him as head over all things to the church: Although on earth we do not yet see the full supremacy of Christ, it is already accomplished in heaven. In the meantime, Christ has established the church as his body, of which we are all members. Paul’s well-known analogy between the church and the human body is pressed into service here, but with a specification. The author here compares Christ to the head of the body, without which the body cannot live or function and from which the body receives orders. The old age is in the process of being replaced by the new. In earth years this might take eons, but in “heaven years” it has already occurred. Thus, to those on earth we have hope according to verse eighteen. Just as the author has expanded the Pauline analogy of church as body-members to church as members with Christ as head, so also he expands the notion of church as a local congregation to church as worldwide entity, the universal church. This is yet another example of how we find even in Scripture itself a movement from the literal sense to the fuller sense, that is, applying an earlier Scripture text to a later and different context and deriving God’s revelation from it, applying it to a new set of circumstances, not envisioned by the original inspired author. In this case, Paul would have given the original, literal sense and his disciple the later, fuller sense.
In verse twenty-three, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way: This verse is notorious because no one can agree on its exact meaning. Both syntactically and semantically it presents problems and admits of various interpretations. Nonetheless, the general sense is clear. “Fullness” is a biblical term to indicate the difference God’s presence makes. Not to God, of course, but to humans. As we become aware “knowledge” in verse seventeen; “enlightenment” in verse eighteen, of the presence of God we experience a “filling up” within us and realize that it is God’s presence that “fills all things in every way.” Thus, we can leave aside the scholarly nitpicking and enjoy the verse as a contemplative statement that does not admit of analysis. It is a synthesis of all that has just been said.
Sermon
Revelation happens when human words, are infused by the Holy Spirit, with divine meaning. All we have are human words. But when Christ uses them he adds the divine dimension to them. While this is true of all the “words” of the Bible, it is preeminently true of Christ’s words and, by relationship to them, of the words those who quote or paraphrase Christ, that is, the apostle and Paul.
Most of the disagreements people have about what the Bible says or does not say are disputes about the divine meaning of the human words, not about the human words or wordings themselves. Two people can quote the exact same verse and come up with different interpretations as to its meaning. And we have not even gotten to its application to life yet! Because human language has been infected by sin, as has everything in creation, we must take constant care to avoid reading into God’s revealed word meanings we would like it to have or meanings we presume it has. Jesus himself gave us the principle for interpreting any verse of Scripture. He tells us to compare it to the rest of Scripture “But Scripture also says…” he replies to Satan in the temptations scene. No verse of Scripture can be inconsistent with the rest of Scripture. God is consistent, a synonym of ‘faithful,” and would not contradict himself. That said, we do not mean that there is not “paradox,” to be found in revelation. There are also “irreconcilable differences” if one only stays on the human plane. Frequently, these problems dissipate when we look at the word of God from God’s viewpoint. That means when we not only study God’s word like a good student but when we pray it like a good disciple.
That is what the author is doing in this text. He is taking God’s words of revelation and, after having reflected on them, he is using those very words to talk to God. He knows God approves of those words and the thoughts they express, because God used them first. He is speaking after God and, like David, “after God’s own heart.”
Thus, when he prays for wisdom, he does not mean cleverness or erudition, but wisdom as God uses the term, as more than just knowledge but a sense of “how to live.” He knows that this is neither the result of luck or even book learning. It is the result of obedience, a faith response to God’s word. God’s word really does not become clear until and unless we live it. The author has learned this from experience, but it is not his experience that has resulted in wisdom. Rather wisdom is given by God, which, in turn, results in experiencing life as God intends it.
And when the author prays for hope, he is not referring to that uncertain feeling of wanting and doubting, as when we say we hope tomorrow will be a better day, knowing full well that it most probably will not be. He means hope as God understands it, as he had revealed it in his word. Christian hope is glad confidence that the future will indeed be good because it already is good. The future is heaven and it already exists. It is just that I am not there yet, but am confident I will be. This makes it possible for me to live in the present with confidence. For Christ is already in the future, well, future to me; present to him, and he is already present in me and in his church. That is where hope arises. Both by anticipation and by foretaste I have already entered into the future, my future, your future, our future, the universe’s future. The certainty of its fulfillment is not in doubt, only the length of the interval between now and then. That “interval” is the time of the church.
As Paul counsels in 1 Corinthians 7: 25-30, we Christians are to live “as though,” we were already in heaven while we are still here on earth. As we do so we “continue to continue,” to grow into that heavenly likeness of Christ and at the same time we glow with the light of Christ and become a focal point of attraction to Christ by others. The Church grows and the more it grows the closer that day of finality approaches when Christ will return and restore all things in himself, when God will be ‘all in all,” when we will experience the “fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.
Those who accept Christ can see the world and reality as Christ sees and can understand why Christ behaved the way he did.
Because we still live with one foot on earth-ground we are always in danger of reverting to our former state of impaired vision. Hence, the need for constant prayer.
Contemplating the mystery of Christ enlarges both our vision and our heart and allows us to enjoy eternal peace even while still on earth.
From heaven’s point of view all is finished and the final verdict is in, but from earth’s point of view there is still hope.
The Church teaches that there are two senses of Scripture, two levels, even two types, of meaning that a passage of Scripture has. There is the literal sense. By that the Church means the sense the sacred author intends to convey. This sense is derived by carefully reading the text in context. The vast majority of Scripture verses will yield this meaning once a person has done the necessary homework and research. Of course, that meaning cannot contradict anything else Scripture has clearly said. Thus, the fundamental principle of interpretation is that it is not opposed to the rest of Scripture. Then, there is the fuller sense, Lt sensus plenior. While this sense admits of broader interpretation than the literal sense, it must meet the same criteria. It is a form of exegesis, i.e. reading out of Scripture what is in it, as opposed to eisegesis, i.e. reading into Scripture what we would like it to say. This sense allows us to apply the historical texts in contexts not originally envisioned by the sacred author, but not opposed to his revelatory insights either. When we carefully and prayerfully read or listen to Scripture and receive insights regarding its application to our present lives we are experiencing the fuller sense of Scripture. It will just as often lead to changed behavior as to changed speech about theological matters. Without the fuller sense Scripture would be just another collection of historically-conditioned documents. The fuller sense makes it the living word of God.
Principality, Authority, Power and Dominion: In the literal sense, these terms refer to spiritual powers and in the context to spiritual powers hostile to human beings, intending them harm. In the fuller sense, the meaning can legitimately be transferred to present-day hostile spiritual powers such as racism, nationalism, addictions like alcoholism, sexual perversions, gambling, and the like. All these, like the ancient “principalities,” seek to exercise control over human lives to their detriment and the detriment of the unity of humanity God intends us to have in Christ. When we do that, we are better able to understand what God is saying to us today, while respecting how he said it long ago.
Ephesians: This letter was written at the end of the first Christian century by a disciple of the now-dead Paul. It is an example of the fuller sense of prior Scriptures becoming Scripture itself, fresh revelation based on a meditation and application of earlier revelation. The author depends upon, quotes from, and reveals fresh insights from all the prior letters of Paul, as well as Luke-Acts and 1Peter. He represents Paul’s teaching to a later and more Gentile generation, expressing the meaning of earlier Pauline phrases in words more easily understood by a later generation. Thus he will use “save” instead of the more Jewish and frequent Pauline term “justify.” He will extend the meaning of “mystery,” found in Colossians and he depends on Colossians more than any other source, which there means Christ himself, to “God’s purpose, through Christ, to unite all things.” He will expand the Pauline notion of Church from an individual congregation of believers to the universal Church and add the notion of Christ as head of the body, the church, a notion absent in 1 Corinthians where the analogy originally appeared. This is the fuller sense of Scripture at work even within Scripture. Now, of course, its literal sense becomes the fodder for further application over the centuries, for the author sees the church as existing for a much longer time than originally thought by Paul, and sees marriage as an image of Christ’s love for the church, rather than as Paul did, namely, a necessary second choice in the light of the imminent Parousia. Amen.
