[sunday meditations]

Ephesians 1.7-10

“The early verses in Ephesians give us insight into the overarching script that God has written for creation. Not only has He chosen us in Christ to be blameless (1:3-6), but He has also granted us the forgiveness of our sins (1:7-8), freeing us from the condemnation of the law and reenlisting us into His holy army. God accomplished this wondrous feat through the proclamation of reconciliation (1:8-9). The good news of Christ, finally unveiled in all its glory and clarity, performs this great work of power. Finally, we learn that our reconciliation is part of His greater plan of reconciling all things together (1:9-10). In Christ, sinners find peace with God, His holy angels, and one another. And it is in Christ that we discover a future hope, that our sin-stained realm will be cleansed and united with heaven itself, according to God’s great wisdom and eternal purpose.”

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In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

[Ephesians 1.7-10]

Ephesians is filled with great glimpses of God’s “Master Plan”—what He is doing in Christ—and our place, role, and purpose in that great drama that goes beyond us to the whole of creation. We have been written into the story, so-to-speak, of God reconciling all things to Himself through Christ. Paul makes it clear in Eph 1.10 that God’s plan in Christ is a plan of reconciliation, uniting all things in Christ, those things “in heaven” as well as those things “on earth.” 

We who are in Christ POSSESS reconciliation. We were once, as Paul will say in Ephesians 4, “alienated from God,” hard of heart, darkened in our understanding, enlisted in a rebel army under a false general, warring against God in our hearts, minds, and bodies. God came to His own, and we decimated Him. But by this, God sought our redemption, the forgiveness of our trespasses. 

We possess the forgiveness of sins. 

Forgiveness isn’t something we’re waiting on. 

Forgiveness isn’t incomplete, something to be fully completed in the future. 

We possess it. 

Not only that, but we possess reconciliation. 

We are right with God; because of justification, we now stand before God in peace. 

We are no longer His enemies; we are “friends of God."

Even more, we have been adopted as His children. 

We possess redemption: we have been freed from the curse of the law and from the power of sin because of what Christ accomplished in his death and resurrection. 

We who are in Christ are to PROCLAIM reconciliation. God’s modus operandi in the “advance of reconciliation” is the proclamation of Christ. When the gospel is proclaimed, the Holy Spirit is at work through the “going out” of God’s Word. The Spirit who was active in the creation of the world as God’s Word “went out” in Genesis 1 & 2 is the same Spirit who works powerfully through the proclamation of the gospel. The evil powers in the heavenly places stand against this proclamation; they have set their teeth against God and His gospel, and they strive to curb its advance. Their primary method of warfare is that of lying and deception; the evil powers seek to convince us that this message is foolish, or that it is isn’t as good as it sounds. 

“You’re not fully forgiven.” 

“There’s no way this can be the truth.” 

“Look at your sin: could God really love you and accept you?” 

His lies are contrary to scripture, and they’re clever, aimed at drawing us away from God and His desires for us. He sows death and decay; God sows life and life eternal. 

The PLAN of reconciliation. So often we see ourselves as Center Stage in the gospel; but Christ is the center, and we are supporting actors in God’s plan to unite all things to Him in Christ. There’s “vertical reconciliation”: Christ became sin for us, bearing God’s wrath towards us, paying the due penalty of our rebellion in full, and defeating evil; by his act we are reconciled upwards (or vertically) to God. There’s “horizontal reconciliation”: we are reconciled to one another in Christ. All people, once hostile to one another, are reconciled in one body—Christ’s body—in the church. There’s “cosmic reconciliation”: a cleansing has been accomplished, and heaven and earth will be reconciled. This is the Christian’s “great inheritance.”