Introduction
Just what is the
Church? We find several answers in Paul’s
letter to the Ephesians. In the first
chapter, Paul provides us with twelve important theological and ethical
understandings of the Church. The following
list of these characteristics separates each for consideration, but the chapter
itself is not a list. The characteristics
of the Church relate to one another.
Also, the characteristics of the Church relate the Church as God’s
people to the three Persons of the Trinity.
Indeed, the highly relational understanding of the Church in this
chapter continues throughout Ephesians, always with a focus on how
relationships are theological and not merely communal.
After listing
the twelve characteristics of the Church in Ephesians chapter one, the theological
focus of Ephesians will be considered in regard to the nature of unity. This is important in our day as denominations
divide. Many have claimed that the
importance of the Church’s unity is so great that such divisions are
wrong. A proper understanding of unity,
that is, an understanding of unity theologically,
will help us consider this matter Biblically, and Ephesians is one of the most
in-depth discussions of ecclesiastical unity in the New Testament.
The Twelve Characteristics of the Church in Ephesians
1
The following
list of twelve characteristics of the Church in Ephesians 1 follows the wording
of the chapter very closely. As the
characteristics are noted, observe how they are not about a human type of
unity—mere communal relationships—but are theological. They are theological in that the relational
unity is defined in regard to the people of God in relationship with the Triune
God.
First, the
Church is equal to the faithful holy ones (saints) in Christ Jesus (1.1).
Second, the
Church is a people blessed by God in Christ with every spiritual blessing in
the heavenly places (1.3). It is a
people blessed by God’s glorious grace in the Beloved (1.6). The spiritual blessings in the heavenly places
are those blessings bestowed on the people by God, blessings that could only
come from God. These blessings are
redemption through the blood of Christ, forgiveness of trespasses, the riches
of His grace lavished upon us, and wisdom and insight making known to us the
mystery of His will—His purpose set forth in Christ—to unite all things in
heaven and earth in Christ (1.7-10). The
Spirit gives the Church wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus,
enlightenment into the hope to which it has been called, the riches of God’s
inheritance in the saints, the immeasurable greatness of God’s power toward
believers worked in Christ by raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His
right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule, authority, power, and
dominion, above every name that is named, in this age and the age to come
(1.17-21).
Third, the
Church is the people of God chosen before the foundation of the world (1.4a). This statement is too often read in the West
in individualic terms (this passage is not
about personal predestination), but Paul’s point is that the Church was God’s plan from before the
beginning of creation. That is, God has
planned to have a special people unto Himself (a point already developed in
regard to Israel in the Old Testament; cf. Exodus 19.5-6).
Fourth, the
Church is the people of God chosen to be holy and blameless before Him (1.4b). The ‘choosing’ in this verse has an
objective, as we find in various Old Testament passages regarding Israel as the
people of God. God does not simply
choose a people but chooses them to be
holy and blameless before Him.
Fifth, the
Church is the people of God who are adopted as sons in love through Jesus
Christ (1.4-5).
Sixth, as
adopted sons, the Church has obtained an inheritance (1.11). The inheritance has already been sealed with
the giving of the Holy Spirit to the Church.
The Holy Spirit is not some future promise to the Church but is the
present gift to the Church, thus serving as the guarantee of the future
inheritance (1.13-14).
Seventh, the
Church exists for the praise of God’s glory (1.12). The theological purpose of all that God has
done is the praise of God’s glory, repeated three times: ‘to the praise of His
glorious grace’ (v. 6), ‘to the praise of His glory’ (v. 12), and ‘to the
praise of His glory’ (v. 14).
Eighth, the
Church is the people who heard the Word of truth, the Gospel of their
salvation, and put their hope in and believed in Christ Jesus (1.12-13, 14).
Ninth, the
Church is a people of faith in the Lord Jesus and of love toward all the saints
(1.15).
Tenth, the
Church is the people for whom Christ rules (1.22). The rule of Christ over all things is not
something that simply includes the Church but is for the Church.
Eleventh, the
Church is Christ Jesus’ body on earth, the fullness of Him who fills all in all
(1.23). Where the Church rightly
represents Christ, and when the Church embodies Christ’s fullness, it is Christ
in the world. Christ’s exaltation to
heaven is not His absence from the earth as His presence in the Church is His
abiding presence in the world. This
presence is not institutional but is an organic and dynamic presence in the
Church as the people of Christ.
Twelfth, the
Church is the people of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Spirit. This point is made throughout
the chapter as the people of God are described in relation to the three persons
of the Trinity.
Implication: The Church’s Unity is Non-Institutional
but Theological
The theme of
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians has to do with unity and peace. In Ephesians 1, we read that God’s plan for
the fullness of time is to unite all things in heaven and on earth in Christ
(v. 10). Unity is discussed in
subsequent chapters, especially in the great Trinitarian statement of Ephesians
4.4-6:
There
is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs
to your call—
5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
6 one God and Father of all, who is
over all and through all and in all.
As in Ephesians
1, this statement is theological and Trinitarian. Once again, we see that the communal and
relational unity of Ephesians is not institutional. Nor is it firstly or primarily about unity in
human community. It is that, but only
secondarily as unity is first found in the Church’s relationship to God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
I would suggest
that Ephesians functions as a kind of ‘politics’ in the sense that politics has
to do with the right ordering of a people, an ordering that has the goal of
unity and peace. Over against the pax Romana, Ephesians offers a pax ecclesia. This peace is accomplished and expressed in
the Church in its unity with the Triune God and where it is so united with
Christ as to be His body on earth.
One significant
different between a governmental peace like the peace of Rome and Paul’s
ecclesiastical peace is that the former is institutional and the latter is
relational, even organic. This organic
relationship is expressed in Ephesians 4 as the maturity of the ‘body’ as it
grows up into Christ, the head of the Church (vv. 11-16).
One implication
of this theology for the Church is that its unity is not to be found in an
ecclesiastical institution. Yet it is
also not to be found in a purely human community, as important as those
relationships are. (Ephesians 2-4
develops the relationships of the Church in various ways, but always in
relation to Christ.) Rather, the unity
of the Church is theological in the sense that, as Ephesians 1 shows, every
aspect of its unity is derived from its participation in God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, those
breaking their relationship with God by not being the Church as it is meant to
be and as has been described in Ephesians are not the Church. They may
hold the keys of power in an institution, but they are not the Church. Distinguishing ourselves from them by
refusing to follow them in their wandering from God is a way of expressing
theological unity—unity in God. As Paul
says in Ephesians 5,
Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because
of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. 7
Therefore do not become partners with them; 8 for at one time
you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light
9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and
right and true), 10 and try to discern what is pleasing to
the Lord. 11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of
darkness, but instead expose them.
Christ
has shone on us, and therefore we are not
to become partners with those who still live in darkness, who try to
deceive us with their empty words. To be
united to the light of Christ rather means to expose the darkness. Such a darkness has infiltrated the
institutional Church today, and the unity and peace God works among us calls us
to separate from these deceivers and to live out our theological unity in the
Triune God.
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