Knowing His Power (Ephesians 1:19-23)
Introduction
As we have been going through Ephesians, we have been learning all about our blessing that is in Jesus Christ.
· V3 - blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
· V4 – chosen in him. The fountain head of all blessing is his gracious choice of us from eternity past.
· V5 – adoption according to his predestining choice. His love flows out from his gracious choice of us, not just to forgive us, but to make us part of his very family.
· V6 – praise of his grace. The blessing of praise, the joy of giving thanks to his name for his great and powerful work.
· V7 – redemption in his blood and the forgiveness of our trespasses. Even the very riches of his grace have been poured out on us
· V8 – lavish blessing in wisdom and insight.
· V9 – revelation of the mystery of his will, which is his good pleasure, which he purposes and establishes in Jesus Christ
· V10 – the promise of the administration of all of history to bring all things to a great and climactic conclusion: that Jesus Christ would gather up the fractured pieces of the universe and reunite them under his own rule.
· V11 – becoming the inheritance of God with the security of knowing that he constantly works in history in order to make that inheritance a full reality
· V13 – sealing by the Holy Spirit—identification, protection, and assurance of safety in transit
· V14 – even a foretaste of the very thing the Spirit secures by his presence in us. We know what heaven is like now.
Remember, in telling us these things, Paul is taking all the bits and pieces of his teaching about the church from all his other letters and teachings and gathering them up into one letter. He is giving us a kind of systematic overview of what the church is. He is bringing it all together as he describes the Church in God’s program.
But in order for us to truly understand who we are and what God’s work is through us, the eyes of our hearts need to be opened. Which is why Paul continues by praying beginning in verse 15. He knows that all of this has been done for the Ephesian church, but he also knows that it will do them no good if they do not understand it. And we cannot understand his work unless he reveals it to our hearts. Thus, he prays, both giving thanks and asking that the Lord would illuminate their hearts by the Holy Spirit.
And again, you’ll remember that he prays that we would know three things: the hope of our calling, the riches of his inheritance in the saints, and the immeasurable greatness of his power. The subject knowing God’s power is what he takes up in our verses for this morning. We must know God’s power, both in the mind and in the heart. We must understand with our minds that he is powerful, and then we must feel the impact of his power in our hearts.
Power is very important, because power does things. Those with kids understand the importance of batteries in toys. Those with phones understand the importance of having your phone charged at the beginning of the day. We have power plants of all sorts to make sure that we can do what we need to do, from driving to cooking to flying to growing a vegetable garden.
But of all the sources of power in our universe, consider the Sun, which gives life to the earth. The sun puts out 3.8x10^26 watts per second. That is more power in a single second than humans have used in all of history combined. Of all that energy, our little earth only intercepts about 1 part in 2.2 billion, and still the amount of energy that reaches the earth is over 10,000 times the world’s total energy consumption at any given moment. If we could capture all the energy from the Sun that lands on the earth in one hour, we could power everything on earth for a year. Without the sun’s energy, the earth would drop to -400 degrees F within a few weeks. All living things would perish. All ocean systems, currents, weather patterns, and the water cycle would completely disappear.
And remember, our sun is small in a galaxy of billions of suns, in a universe with billions of galaxies. These are designed by God to be merely echoes of his own power. Through the Creation God makes his power known.
For us to experience all that God has for us as a church, we must know God’s power. We need to know it with our minds and grasp—to whatever degree we can—how powerful he is. And we need to know it in our souls—to whatever degree we can. We must allow the weight and force of God’s power to land on our souls that it does in us all that it is meant to do—to cause us comfort, fear, joy, growth, trembling, confidence, boldness, and to give us strength.
Paul teaches three facts about God’s power that open our eyes to all he can do for us.
I. The Reality of God’s Power (v19)
The first fact which we need to know about God’s power is its reality. God’s power is real. “…what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might….”
Sin blinds us to the reality that God is powerful—in fact, that God is the most powerful. Our remaining sin causes us to see the oppositions we face and then to shrink back in fear. But we only shrink back because we fail to know what the immeasurable greatness of his power is toward us who believe! The eyes of our hearts need to be opened to the great power he has shown toward us.
God is powerful. God is greatly powerful. God is immeasurably greatly powerful. God’s immeasurably great power accords with the working of the might of his strength.
Paul piles up four words for power.
· Dunamis – Power according to its ability; what it is able to do. Potential power. “God is able.”
· Energeian – Power according to its activity. Active power, power at work, power in motion. “God is working.”
· Kratous – Power according to its demonstration. Subduing power, sometimes translated “dominion” or “rule.” “God is mighty.”
· Ischus – Power according to its possession. Inherent power, power personally possessed. “God is strong.”
So, when Paul says (literally) that he wants us to know “what is the immeasurable greatness of his power [dunamis] toward us who believe, according to the working [energeian] of the might [kratous] of his strength [ischus],” he is saying “God is able to save, he is working to save, he is mighty to save, and his is strong to save. God can save, he is at work to save, he is demonstrating his power in his rule of the universe, and he is strong inherently to get it done.”
We need to know that God is powerful. Why? Our enemies are powerful.
Satan is powerful. Demons are much more powerful than we are. The sons of Sceva found that out, when they attempted to cast out demons by Jesus and Paul. One of the marks of false teachers is that they are “bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones, whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord” (2 Pet 2:10-11). Jude says that they, “relying on their dreams, blaspheme the glorious ones” and as they do so they do what not even the archangel Michael dares to do. They do not understand and are consequently destroyed (Jude 8-10).
But the Lord has the power to subdue demons. He regularly did so during his earthly ministry. And, in a few verses it says that he has been placed “high above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named both in this age and in the one to come” (Eph 1:21). Through his death and resurrection God has demonstrated that he is more powerful than death and has seated his own Son high above all angels and demons to rule them. So Satan cannot destroy our salvation in Christ. He is more powerful than they.
Sin is powerful. Though sin’s power has been defeated and we do not have to follow its commands, we often do yield to its power. Sin persists in us. And it produces death in us whenever the commandment comes. And although we are spiritual, our flesh is still under the sway of sin. Thus, as Paul says in Romans 7:15f, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” As Ephesians will go on to teach in chapter 4, we still speak falsehood. We still get unrighteously angry. We still steal from one another. We still speak corrosive words. We still give ourselves to bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander and malice. And by so doing we grieve the Holy Spirit who is in us.
But Christ is also more powerful than this enemy! Eph 1:7 in him we have “redemption in his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.” All the sins that you will ever commit are forgiven. They are no surprise to God. He knew that when he chose you before the foundations of the earth. He knew that when he sent his Son into the world to shed his blood. He knew that you would still sin against him when he sealed you with his Holy Spirit. One might even dare to say that this is the very reason he did that work in the first place. He will not allow sin to have dominion over you because he is your only master and has demonstrated that he has triumphed not only over Satan, but also over the sin to which he tempted us in the garden. And he will not be satisfied until that sin is defeated and lies crushed beneath your feet.
Death is powerful. The last great enemy to be defeated is death. Even though the war has been decisively won, we still experience death. There is a real sense where we have yet to truly and fully sing the words, “Where O death is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
But Christ has triumphed powerfully over this enemy as well! As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:57, “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The reuniting of all things under Christ depends on this! As he will say in verse 20, he “raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand.” Christ has triumphed over death and defeated it for us. Thus, as he tells Peter, “The gates of Hades will not prevail against the church.” Even death cannot defeat us.
Exalt in the majesty of his power. Contemplate the reality of his power towards us. He can save. He is working to save. He subdues in the exercise of his power. He is strong and mighty. His power is immeasurably great.
But where is his power most evidently seen?
II. The Display of God’s Power (v20-22a)
Not only must we know the reality of his power, but we also must see it displayed in Christ. The second fact we need to know is that God’s immeasurably great power is displayed most clearly in the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus Christ. “…that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet…” God’s mighty power is displayed most clearly in the resurrection and exaltation of his Son.
Now, we have to understand that Christ’s resurrection from the grave is not merely an act of giving life to a dead man, but an act of the invasion of a new age into this one. Remember the story of the first creation. Adam was created and given a bride. They together were given authority and dominion over all the earth. They were to rule and subdue the creation according to God’s word as they walked in fellowship with their maker. But rather than hear God’s voice, they disobeyed it and listened to the voice of Satan—the heavenly ruler. And thus a snake (creation) began to dominate man. Rather than man subduing the creation, the creation subdued man. Thus man worshiped the creation rather than the one who created it, and the creation would ultimately subdue man by causing man to die and return to the dust from which he created. It’s almost as though the earth pulls man back down into itself to uncreate him in death. Man sinned, and sin brought death, and all that at the behest of a demonic serpent.
If this is so, what happens, then, when a man rises himself from the grave? If he rises from the grave, he demonstrates that death is no longer powerful because sin has been forgiven because the demonic forces behind the temptation which caused sin have been overthrown. Christ, a last Adam, has risen from the dead, because Christ has defeated sin, and all of that because Christ has crushed the head of the serpent. And so, God has raised up Christ not only from the dead but also to sit at his very right hand to rule over creation for him.
Ephesians 1:20 contains a reference to Psalm 110:1: “The Lord says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’” And that Psalm goes on to say that this Lord rules from Zion with a mighty scepter among his enemies. And this king is also a priest after the order of Melchizedek—a new order of priests for a new humanity and a new creation. And David goes on to describe that king-priest, “The Lord is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will [lit.] shatter the head over the wide earth.” All of this describing the fullness of his Messianic reign and coming conquering of all the earth when he consummates his reign.
Jesus has been seated at the right hand of God in the heavenly places—the very place from which verse 3 says all spiritual blessings proceed. And as he has been seated there, he has been raised above “all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named both in this age and in the one to come.” Christ is the uncontested ruler of everything. All these terms describe some sort of spiritual power, all of which are at work in the heavenly places.
Then, with Christ having defeated death and being seated at God’s right hand in the heavenly places above all spiritual powers, Paul masterfully says, “And he put all things under his feet.” This also is a reference to the Psalms, but this time it is to Psalm 8:6. And in Psalm 8 David describes the majesty of God displayed in the heavens and contemplates the smallness of mankind. “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him.” Yet, David goes on to say, “You have made him [mankind] a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.” How has that happened? 8:6, “You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.” That is, mankind has been given dominion over the whole earth.
Remember what we said, mankind, through his rebellion, twisted that dominion. While we do still possess some vestige of dominion over the earth, the earth rebels against us and eventually overtakes us and returns us to dust. It is almost as though we have been put under the creation’s feet. But Christ is man, the son of man, truly human, truly one of us. And he, as our great representative, has conquered death and sin and Satan, and God has raised him up to sit at his right hand, and in that place, God has “put all things under his feet.” So, in the work of Christ, all of creation has been placed back under the feet of Adam! Creation’s order is restored. God has already begun to realize his plan for the reuniting of all things in Christ as it spoke of in verse 10.
And this is where I can’t help myself but to jump forward and get a preview of what Paul will say: 2:5–6: “even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and he raised us up together with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Where Jesus is now, you are also. So all that is under his feet is under your feet. And so in him we comprise a brand new humanity—as he will say in 2:15, “one new man.” We are a new humanity under the rule and intercession of our great king-priest and demonstrate through our fellowship that God in Christ is uniting all things in Christ and has put all things under his feet.
This then sets up for the crown jewel of this long sentence, and our last point.
III. The Gift of God’s Power (v22b–23)
“…and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” The third fact that we need to know is that God has given the risen and exalted Christ to the church, which is his body. Not only is God’s power a great reality with which we must be intimately familiar, and not only do we see that power mightily displayed in the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus Christ, but then that mighty power is given to us as God gives Christ to us as our head. We could summarize it like this: Jesus is the head of a brand new humanity, and we in the church are the beginning of that new humanity, and that new humanity is the head of a coming order. God has given the risen, seated, reigning Christ as head of all things to the church.
This is the first time that Paul discusses the church as Christ’s “body” in Ephesians. It is the central metaphor to describe the church in this book. We are not a physical body but a body of people, a gathering which demonstrates Christ’s presence. Thus, there is unity and peace within that body (2:16: “might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.”). That body is forged by the Spirit of God and is possessed of one hope, and is preserved by the virtues of humility and patience and gentleness (Eph 4:1-5). The body is built up and equipped by the ministry of the saints to one another empowered by the teaching of the church’s leadership (4:12). And the body of Christ is so united to Christ that it can be said to be Christ’s own body the same way that a wife is her husband’s own body (Eph 5:23–30).
The church is the body of Christ. Which is to say that the church is the presence of Christ in the world. All the actions of the church are the actions of Christ. All the ministries of the church are the ministries of Christ. And the body has two different facets. One the one hand, the body is one, and that one body manifests the whole person. You look at my body, you see one reality, not many realities. My body manifests my presence in the world as a unified whole. And so in the same way, the body of Christ manifests Christ’s presence in the world as a unified whole. On the other hand, the body is many. While the body is a unified whole, it is comprised of many different members. And all those members have a different function or job. And it is only as all those members function according to their job that the body works and is healthy. And in the same way, the body of Christ is a unified whole which possesses many members, and each of those members has a function in the body which they are to perform if the church is to become healthy.
But the point here in verse 1:22 is that the church is Christ’s body in the world, particularly in relationship to his saving power. So: the church is the present demonstration working of God to accomplish his purposes. You want to know if God’s still at work in the world? You just need to ask one question: is the church still gathering? If so, then God’s power is at work. The church is the demonstration that God has triumphed over sin and death and Satan. How do you know that Satan has been defeated? The church exists as Christ’s body! How we you know that all things have been put under Christ’s feet? The Church! Why? Because the church is his body.
And he is the head of that body—the authority over the body. Just like your body does what your head says, so also the body of Christ does what its head says. He is the authority. I am not the authority. The congregation is not the authority. Christ is the authority. We do what Jesus says in the Bible. He is the head.
But look carefully at what the text says. It does not necessarily say that Christ is the head of the church. That is true. But that is not the assertion of this text. Rather it says that he is the head of all things. And that he has been given to the church as the head of all things. To draw a parallel, he is not saying that the husband is the authority over his wife. He is saying that the husband who is one with his wife is the king of everything. Christ is given to the church as the authority over everything, including but not limited to the church.
Furthermore, the church is his fullness. Now, all sorts of ink has been spilt on what exactly this means. But we’ll walk through it and hopefully make it understandable. What does it mean that the church is the “fullness” of Christ? It could mean three things. First, it could mean that the church is filled with Christ, such that the church contains the fullness of Christ. Or, secondly and in a related way, it could mean that the church is filled by Christ with something else, such as his gifts and graces. The third option is that the church fills up Christ. All three understandings have had good, godly, orthodox guys defend them. All three are supported by the grammar and the broader theology of Ephesians and the rest of the Bible. However, I believe the first option to be the most likely. I find it hard to believe that the church completes Christ because in the New Testament it is Christ who completes the church by building it, not the church who completes Christ. And the first two are part of the same whole. Christ fills the church with himself in the sense that he is present with the church in the Holy Spirit. And, when he gives the gift of the Holy Spirit, he also gives them all the gifts and graces they need to be his body in the world by the Holy Spirit. Thus, the body of Christ is the fullness of Christ in the sense that Christ fills the church with his presence, and therefore the church manifests Christ’s presence in the world, in much the same way that my body manifests my presence in the world.
So, what then does it mean that the church is the fullness of him who fills all in all? And here you essentially have two explanations. First, it could be translated this way: the body is “filled with him who is filled with everything in every way.” Which would mean that Christ fills the church with himself, and Christ himself is filled with all the fullness of God. And that, of course, is true, and is the testimony of books like Colossians. But it is hard to accept this because it is a left turn from Paul’s argument, and also does not fully reckon with how Paul uses the term “fullness” later on in this book. Rather, I think the ESV translates it correctly that the church is “the fullness of him who fills all in all.” That is, Christ fills the church, it is “his fullness,” the full expression of his presence. And that the church is then a small expression of what will one day be true: Christ will one day fill the universe with his glory. That is, he fills the church now in much the same way that he will fill the universe in the future. Just as the glory of God filled the tabernacle in Exodus, and just as the glory of God filled the temple of Solomon, and just as the glory of God will one day fill the temple in the millennium, so also Christ fills the church with his presence and glory and an indicator of how he will fill the universe with his glory at the end. Just as it says in Isaiah 6:3, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is filled with his glory.”
And all of this makes perfect sense of what Paul has been saying. God intends to reunite the whole world under Christ, to recapitulate in Christ what creation was always intended to be—a shining display of God’s glory in man. And he has worked that power in Christ by raising him from the dead, ushering in a new era and creating in himself a new humanity. And God has lifted him up above all spiritual powers of darkness and seated him at his right hand and put all things in subjection to him so that he might renew all things. And even as he sits on heaven’s throne, God has given Christ as the head of all things to the church, who is his body, who manifests his exalted presence on the earth as a little foretaste of the world to come.
When means (and here is the main takeaway)—you are the present demonstration of God’s power to save. You are the fullness of Christ’s presence on earth. You are the foretaste of the coming day when Christ will fill all things with his glory and reunite all things under his headship.
So, act like it.
Conclusion
What can we say in conclusion other than “Praise the Lord.” We need to know his power to save if we are going to be all we should be as a church. The Holy Spirit needs to open the eyes of our hearts to see these things. And we need to ask that the Lord would give us the Holy Spirit to open our eyes.
Don’t fear. God is more powerful than all your enemies. And he is certainly powerful enough to bring all these things about.