Lecture 24: Ephesians Explored, and Philippians: The Partnership in the Gospel and the Kenosis

The lecture, section by section

1. The calling and the conduct

   The purpose of Ephesians: Gentile Christians are shown their place in the purpose of God for the church, and urged to show the outworking of their calling in their conduct. The hinge is 4:1, walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, and worthy is scale-language: on one pan sits everything God has done in Christ, and the believer's behavior is to balance it evenly. Hence Essex's Pauline outline of the body: the calling of the church, chapters 1 to 3, and the conduct of the church, chapters 4 to 6, what others alliterate as doctrine and duty or position and practice.

2. The doxology and the two prayers

   In place of a thanksgiving for the readers stands a doxology for redemption, 1:3 to 14, tracing each person of the Godhead: the Father who chose us before the foundation of the world and predestined us to adoption, the Beloved Son in whom we have redemption through his blood according to the riches of lavished grace, and the Holy Spirit of promise who sealed both the Jewish believers who first hoped and the Gentile believers who heard and believed, the pledge until the redemption of the purchased possession, all to the praise of his glory. The first prayer follows, that the eyes of the heart be enlightened to know three things: the hope of his calling, the riches of his inheritance in the saints, and the surpassing greatness of his power toward believers, the very power that raised Christ from the dead, seated him in the heavenlies, and subjected all things under his feet for the church.

3. The calling unfolded

   Chapter 2 applies that resurrection power to the readers: you were dead in trespasses, children of wrath like the rest, Jew and Gentile alike, but God, rich in mercy, made us alive, raised us, and seated us with Christ, by grace through faith, not of works, his workmanship created for good works. Then the corporate wonder: the far-off brought near by the blood of Christ, the dividing wall broken, one new man, fellow citizens with the saints, God's household, a holy temple, a dwelling of God in the Spirit. Chapter 3 names it the mystery, sketched briefly already, now revealed: Gentiles fellow heirs, fellow members, fellow partakers, with Paul steward of its declaration; and the second prayer bows the knee that Christ may dwell in their hearts, that they may comprehend with all the saints and know the love that surpasses knowledge, sealed with the doxology to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, to him be glory in the church.

4. The conduct unfolded, and the armor

   From 4:1 the imperatives answer the indicatives. First, preserve, not create, the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, above all the blood-bought unity of Jew and Gentile, each part supplying the body's growth. Then the Gentile past must come off like old clothes: lying, stealing, corrupt speech, and settled anger were simply the learned ethic of the Gentile world, as Essex notes they remain the learned ethic of American life, and the new man, created in righteousness and holiness, replaces them with truth, labor that gives, words that build, and kindness that forgives as God in Christ forgave. Walk in love, refusing the greed and immorality on which wrath comes; walk as children of light; walk as wise, filled with the Spirit, in worship, marriage, family, and work. And because the seated-in-the-heavenlies church struggles in the earthlies against rulers and powers and world forces of this darkness, take the full armor of God: every piece defensive, for standing firm, with one offensive weapon, the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God, wielded with all prayer, including prayer for the ambassador in chains, that he may speak boldly, for proclaiming the gospel is the church's one campaign in the world. The epilogue closes with love twice named, grace to all who love the Lord Jesus with a love incorruptible.

5. The Ephesians shelf

   Harold Hoehner's commentary is now the preeminent exegetical work; Peter O'Brien's is the superior English interpretation, and together they gather the best of everything written before them. Andrew Lincoln, though denying Pauline authorship, offers exegetical insights worth consulting with discernment, and Dr. MacArthur serves the preacher. Hoehner and O'Brien are the two volumes for the shelf.

6. What is the gift of God?

   Ephesians 2:8: by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. What is the that? Grace and faith are both feminine nouns; the pronoun is neuter, which loosens the case for either alone, though each has had its champions, faith especially as the nearest antecedent. The majority of exegetes, Calvin among them, whose theology, Essex notes, flowed out of exegesis, take the neuter as gathering the whole preceding statement: the entire salvation by grace through faith, indeed everything from, but God, onward, is the gift, unearned, unmerited, excluding all boasting. Other passages establish that even the drawing to faith is God's work; here, exegetically, the gift is the whole of it.

7. He descended: where?

   Ephesians 4 quotes Psalm 68: ascending on high, he led captive a host of captives and gave gifts to men, the picture of a conquering general distributing spoils, and the captives, as in the psalm, are enemies, not rescued friends. Paul's aside, that he ascended means he also descended into the lower parts of the earth, has bred a famous construct: that Christ between death and resurrection descended into Hades, emptied Abraham's bosom, and transferred the Old Testament saints to heaven, a synthesis of Luke 16, Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter 3 popular in traditional dispensational circles and summarized in Herman Hoyt's The End Times. Essex observes that none of his recommended commentators exegete the verse that way: the genitive is best taken as the lower parts, namely the earth, the descent being the incarnation with its death, before the ascension far above all the heavens; Lincoln's descent-of-the-Spirit and Hoehner's descent-to-the-grave readings stay within the same family. As for the compartment theory: Luke 16 shows the rich man in Hades looking across a chasm to Abraham's bosom, not two compartments of one Hades; the captives here are enemies; and 1 Peter 3 is itself contested. Three debated texts stacked into one construct is not heresy, it denies nothing of Christ's person or the believer's hope, but theology must stand on sound exegesis, and Essex commends stating reservations gently, as he learned to do in churches that held the view dearly.

8. Preaching Ephesians whole

   The caveat: do not spend three years in the first three chapters and three weeks in the last three. The indicatives deserve lingering, but the letter's point arrives with the imperatives, and every imperative reaches back: wives, as the church submits to Christ; husbands, as Christ loved the church, both of which send the congregation straight back to chapters 1 to 3. Preach the calling so that the church hears the summons to walk worthy of it; give equal weight to everything in the letter.

9. Philippians: partnership in the gospel

   Philippians, the prison letter least attacked by critics, goes from Paul and Timothy to the saints in Philippi. Joy is its famous note, the root sounding throughout and commanded outright, rejoice in the Lord always, but Essex calls joy the atmosphere of the letter, not its purpose. The purpose-bearing words are gospel and same mind. From the first day until now the Philippians have participated in the gospel, the one church that entered into giving and receiving with Paul, sending to his needs more than once, and lately sending Epaphroditus. Yet a seed of disunity had been planted: Euodia and Syntyche, true gospel co-laborers whose names are in the book of life, were not of the same mind, and a church can divide behind two esteemed women over a matter that is neither heresy nor gospel, while the division itself imperils the gospel partnership. So the purpose: Paul rejoiced in their partnership, past and renewed, and exhorted them to walk worthy of the gospel in unity and steadfastness, for the dogs pounce where there is disharmony.

10. The shape of the letter

    After the thanksgiving and prayer, that their love may abound in knowledge and discernment unto the day of Christ, the body is framed by reports: it opens with Paul's circumstances turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, the praetorium hearing of Christ, rivals preaching Christ from envy while Paul rejoices that Christ is preached in every way, a quiet lesson for Euodia and Syntyche, and his confidence that to live is Christ and to die is gain; and it closes with the renewed partnership and the gift gratefully received. Between them stands the first imperative of the letter, 1:27, only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel, standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, expanded by the call to the mind of Christ and the examples of Christ, Timothy, and Epaphroditus, guarded by the warning of chapter 3, so stand firm, and applied in 4:2 to 9: agree in the Lord, be anxious for nothing, dwell on whatever is true and honorable and lovely. The shelf: O'Brien outstanding, Fee solid, Motyer and MacArthur for exposition.

11. Who were the opponents?

    Four passages name adversaries, and they cannot all be one group. The rivals of chapter 1 preach Christ, and Paul rejoices; he would never say that of Judaizers or super apostles, so these are rival Christians in Rome, perhaps law-favoring Jewish believers nettled by Romans. But the opponents of 1:28 face destruction, the opposite of salvation; the dogs and false circumcision of 3:2 draw Paul's Jewish pedigree in reply, which tells against Gentile libertines; and the enemies of the cross in 3:18, whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly and whose glory is their shame, Essex reads as the same Judaizers: devoted to food laws, glorying in the law that will shame them, minding earthly things against a citizenship in heaven. The commentators multiply groups, two, three, or four, with good exegetes at every count; Essex holds two: rival Christians in Rome, and Judaizers threatening Philippi from without, not yet within.

12. The kenosis: addition, not subtraction

    Philippians 2:5 to 11, the most written-about paragraph in the letter: existing in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant. Of what did he empty himself? The liberal answer, of deity, Essex dispatches as blasphemous rubbish against Colossians 2:9, in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. The serious contest is between two evangelical readings: that he laid aside the independent use of his divine attributes, the note in the NASB margin and in MacArthur's commentary, and the reading Essex holds with O'Brien, Fee, and Kent: the emptying is metaphorical, deliberately without an object, defined by the participle that follows: he emptied himself by taking, adding humanity to deity, the humility of God become man, and as man obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Neither view divests Christ of deity or attributes; both confess him fully God and fully man from Bethlehem on, growing as a true man, his voluntary subjection to the Father explaining the hour no one knows. And the condescension has no expiry: he ascended as the God-man, will return as the God-man, and will be known by his people as the God-man forever.

1. Ephesians balances the scale of calling with the scale of conduct, and every command reaches back to what God has done. When your obedience feels heavy, which truths from the first three chapters most need to be set back on the other pan?

2. Euodia and Syntyche were genuine gospel workers divided over something short of heresy, and their quarrel endangered a whole church's partnership in the gospel. What does their story teach about the cost of unresolved conflict between good people?

3. The kenosis is addition, not subtraction: the Son added humanity and humbled himself to death. How does having this mind among yourselves, as Paul commands, translate into concrete acts in a congregation this week?