Perhaps no letter in the Pauline corpus takes the reader to such mountain heights of adoration and to such level fields of practicality as the six short chapters of Ephesians do. One might call it a feast for the Christian imagination, for it lays out the gospel with great depth and intellectual texture. Paul1 reflects on the magnificence, even lavishness, of God’s redemptive work established in Christ and continued in the Spirit. Chrysostom remarks how Paul grasped the eternal plan of God, connecting Paul’s thought with Christ’s own words in Matt 25:34 to the faithful that he will welcome them into the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world.2 Paul explores the intricacies of what this kingdom looks like for the church now and in the future, as he fills out the picture of the Triune God who from the beginning has orchestrated this grand movement of salvation. Jerome, likely following Origen, acknowledged the complexity of Paul’s thought in describing God’s free gift of salvation. Recall, Jerome remarks, that Ephesus in Paul’s day had at its center the great temple of Artemis/Diana and the widely practiced magical arts commanding allegiance and attention of all its dwellers and visitors. Paul’s letter taught deep theological realities about the powers and principalities against which believers do battle, for the Ephesians were in the thick of the fight.3 Martin Luther, in his theological disagreement with the Roman Catholic Church, argued that Ephesians (4:5) expressed Paul’s vision of the church as the one true body of believers united by one heart even though separated physically by thousands of miles.4 Luther’s comments reflect the general Christian debate about the nature of the church, which has continued through the centuries and relies in large part on Paul’s understanding of the church expressed in Ephesians. As these three examples show, Ephesians covers key foundational aspects of the gospel, including Christology, pneumatology, soteriology, eschatology, and ecclesiology. To these we might add the modern questions of authorship and the social roles described in chapter 5. In Ephesians we find much to reflect upon as God’s plan of redemption, and our own part in the story, is laid before us. The first chapter of Ephesians presents with rhetorical flourish and fanfare the praise rightly due to the one true God, Father, Son, and Spirit. The stage lights are first focused on God the Father, who chose to redeem the world for his good purposes, including creating a people unto himself in Christ. In chapter 2 the spotlight grows to include more fully the role of Christ Jesus in the plan of salvation, and with chapter 3 the stage is flooded with light, revealing the activities of the Holy Spirit in accomplishing the goals of salvation within the church. The final three chapters direct attention to the church, this new creation based on the work of Christ and empowered by the Spirit for God’s glory. Why start with the Trinity? Whatever Paul’s reason, it has the effect of reinforcing the amazingly simple, but profound truth that God is the center of the universe. Not my salvation, not my social justice concerns, not my doctrines on ecclesiology or eschatology; God is the center, the beginning and the end. The tremendous idea—Paul trips over his words to make sense of it—is that the majestic God has determined in our time to make known his salvation plan in Christ. Through the Spirit, he set in motion the salvation plan for a new creation and the full realization of the kingdom of God. If we start with Ephesians in our quest to understand the gospel as Paul outlines it (instead of starting with Romans, for example, although the two letters share quite a bit in common), we might register aspects of Paul’s message that have been muffled or ignored. For example, Ephesians stresses God’s grace in the forgiveness of sins for the purpose of building a new community, a holy temple dedicated to God’s glory. God acted in Christ through the Spirit to make a new creation, which includes personal forgiveness of sins so that a people (Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female) might be made into a new household of God for his glory.
Though difficult to reduce such a complex argument as we find in Ephesians into a single sentence, a possible statement might be that through Christ, God the Father has redeemed humanity from sin and has created a new people empowered by the Spirit. The following outline highlights Paul’s major thought units:
I. Introduction
A. 1:1–2: Paul’s Greetings
II. Redemption in Christ makes the Two One
A. 1:3–14: God’s Work of Salvation
B. 1:15–23: Christ’s Rule over All Things
C. 2:1–10: Saved by Grace Alone
D. 2:11–22: Christ Our Peace Builds His Church
III. Mystery of Salvation Seen in Paul’s Imprisonment
A. 3:1–13: God’s Salvation Plan Revealed
B. 3:14–21: Paul’s Prayer for Believers’ Wisdom and Fullness
IV. Exhortation to Walk Worthy of Our Calling
A. 4:1–16: One Spirit, One Lord, One God and Father, One Body
B. 4:17–24: Put on the New Person
C. 4:25–32: Speak Truth in Love
D. 5:1–14: Imitate God, Walk in Love
E. 5:15–21: Be Filled with the Spirit
F. 5:22—6:9: Spirit-Filled Relationships in Christ
G. 6:10–20: Put on the Armor of God
V. Closing Remarks
A. 6:21–24: Paul’s Final Words of Grace and Peace
Modern Interpretive Questions
Since the 1960s, a most heated discussion has enveloped the interpretation of Paul. Two camps emerged, known, with a singular lack of creativity, as the old perspective and the new perspective. The “old” way of reading Paul is to stress his emphasis on forgiveness of sins and justification of the individual sinner through Christ’s work on the cross and his resurrection. The new perspective challenges that Paul was quite interested in the relationship between Jews and Gentiles and how the work of Christ affects each community as well as the newly forming church. In Ephesians, we have both of these convictions represented as two sides of the same coin. The redemptive work of Christ takes material shape in creating a new people of God made up of Jews and Gentiles. The new community is not a serendipitous result of Christ’s resurrection; rather it is the tangible, everyday proof of God’s surpassing power to make all things new. The empty tomb evidences Christ’s resurrection, and his appearance to his disciples and apostles (including Paul, 1 Cor 9:1–2; 15:8) was a testimony many clung to even in the face of martyrdom. But the ramifications of the resurrection are not limited to the salvation of the human soul, or even to restoring the kingdom to Israel as the disciples wondered aloud to Jesus (Acts 1:6). God’s plans are much bigger. They include the whole creation, and the evidence of Jew and Gentile together as equal participants in community is the daily confirmation Paul points to that God is indeed at work in Christ. The Letter to the Ephesians is a six-chapter exposition on the mystery of God’s wisdom revealed in this salvation plan.
Ironically, those who reject Pauline authorship of the letter (see a full discussion below) often point to the focused attention the church receives in Ephesians for support of their contentions. But the emphasis on church is a natural and essential aspect of Christ’s work on the cross, and so the extensive discussion in Ephesians about the church should not give rise to suspicions that the letter is deutero-Pauline, that is, attributed to Paul but not written under Paul’s direct influence. Indeed the church is a necessary part of God’s redemptive plan, which is to make all creation new. The church, as the body of Christ (who is its head), is an instrument through which God works to restore his creation, until the final event when God will establish the new heavens and new earth, when Christ hands over the kingdom to the Father (1 Cor 15:28). The church as the body of Christ represents (imperfectly) Christ to the world, and as such it is not a pleasant, though
