Grace OPC Sewickley PA

Sermon Series: Ephesians 5-6

Rejoicing With Trembling

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Ephesians 5-6” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 29, 1996.

About this sermon

Paul’s ‘always’ in Ephesians 5:20 carries the same meaning it has in Philemon, and it rules out both literalism and vagueness. As God’s sons and Christ’s brethren, believers have already received their inheritance. The call of 5:21 to rejoice with trembling describes in miniature the posture Christ himself takes toward the Father.

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Sermon transcript

We are beginning our scripture reading in Hebrews chapter 2. This is Hebrews chapter 2 and we start at verse 5. Give your attention to God’s holy word. Hebrews chapter 2 verse 5. For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak.

But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man, that thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels, thou crownest him with glory and honor, thou didst set him over the works of thy hands. that has put all things in subjection under his seat. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him, but we see Jesus, who is made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death. found with glory and honor that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man. For it became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of the salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one.” for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren.

In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee, and again I will put my trust in him. And again, behold, I am the children which God hath given me. For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same. that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham.

Wherefore, in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God. to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to suffer them that are tempted.”

Then, turning over to Ephesians chapter 5, verses 20 and 21, Chapter 5, 20 and 21. Give thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ. Let’s pray together. Our Lord, as our hope has been in your word, truly this is the case for your people throughout the world. Our prayer, O God, is for the ministry of this word to our souls, but also to the souls of our brothers and sisters in Christ, throughout the world. Father, and to this end, bless that word in its evangelistic power and importance for the conversion of sinners, for the gathering of your elect from all of the nations. This is our prayer, O God, even as we look forward to the coming of Jesus Christ in the clouds of glory with all his holy host.

Amen. The Apostle Paul sees the Christian life as a life of continual thanksgiving. The Apostle, as the emissary of the Lord Jesus Christ, as the minister of the Holy Spirit, calls the Church to such a life. Paul says that we are always to be giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father. Ephesians 5 verse 20. But what can the apostle mean by these words?

Does he mean that we are always to be engaged in some sort of formal worship activity? Or does he mean that we are to give ourselves over to a sort of spiritual giddiness, as if we had slipped off into that religious frame of mind in which we refuse, in a determined fashion, to look at life realistically. Is Paul here, in Ephesians, prescribing a spiritual effervescence? Is he prescribing a persistent optimism that appeals to us, if for no other reason, because it makes us feel better?

Or does Paul have in mind a certain standard form of Christian experience, which in his own day, as in ours, expresses itself in worship through a sustained exuberance, but a sustained exuberance only in the most general way, related to the specifics of the gospel and those gospel doctrines that we are to hold dear.

Actually, Paul’s command here to always give thanks is like his command elsewhere to always pray. Paul’s command here to always give thanks is like his command elsewhere to always pray. In fact, by turning to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verses 16 through 18, you can see these two Christian responses presented together. The Apostle writes, Rejoice always! But then he goes on, Pray without ceasing.

In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. Now in taking that in, in taking in what the Apostle says, There, in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, it might not occur to you, but the foundation of the perpetual praying and the perpetual rejoicing and giving thanks to God is what the Apostle says at the conclusion of that eighteenth verse, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.

Now, Paul, in making this statement, is not only making it because he has in mind a near lining up of God’s commands for us on various matters, here specifically, praying and praising. Lining things up for us, as he does in all of his commands, we then naturally expected to obey them. Much more, Paul understands that constant prayer is itself being engaged in by Jesus Christ. This is the will of God for you in Jesus Christ. It’s not merely a matter, then, of lining up or stringing together commands that we are expected to obey. The Apostle Paul is giving you insight and entrance into the rationale, the depth, and the dynamic of the command.

Paul understands that constant prayer is being engaged in presently by Jesus Christ himself. and that at the right hand of his Father. Constant and regular prayer is, for us, God’s will, because constant, regular prayer is the habit of Jesus Christ himself, and we are to be like him. In fact, we are to enter into him. We pray because he prays.

Do you understand how far removed we are from the spirit and form of a religious moralism? I want you to pray because it’s a good idea. I want you to pray because God says you should. I want you to pray because it makes you feel better. No. I want you to pray, because Christ prays. In fact, the only effectual character of prayer rises out of Christ’s prayer, and your participation in it. You are compelled by Him. You are constrained because you are joined to Him and you want to be like Him. Do you not? Is it the same with giving thanks? Thanksgiving becomes the continual expression of our lives, specifically because we are united to the glorified Christ. We are in Him, the very One who now offers continual thanksgiving and praise to God.

Interestingly, it is the writer to the Hebrews who becomes quite specific about both of these matters, prayer and praise. Concerning prayer, he tells us in Hebrews chapter 7, verse 25, that Christ, our risen heavenly high priest, ever liveth to make intercession for us. The always of our prayers, set before us by Paul is grounded in the always-of-Christ prayer set before us in Hebrews. But now I want you to look at Hebrews chapter 2, verse 12, and this in relationship to praise and thanksgiving. Here, in this text, the author, in making reference to Christ, mind you, quotes Psalm 22, verse 22, which says, I will proclaim thy name to my brethren in the midst of the church, I will sing thy praise. Does it grip you as to what is happening in that text from the Psalms and the appropriation of it in the letter to the Hebrews? again induces the activity of the risen heavenly Christ, who more than offering perpetual prayer, also offers perpetual praise and worship to his Father.

The always of our thanksgiving is grounded in the always of Christ’s thanksgiving. Christ always gives thanks, therefore you always give thanks. But to say our prayers are grounded in Christ’s prayer and our thanksgiving is grounded in His thanksgiving means that the content and the orientation of both prayer and praise is discovered in Christ. The content and the orientation of both prayer and praise is discovered in Christ.

To understand the perpetual thanksgiving to which the Church is called now, In light of the text that we have in front of us in Ephesians chapter 5, and how it is paralleled in 1 Thessalonians 5, to understand that perpetual thanksgiving to which the Church is called, we must understand the perpetual thanksgiving expressed by the risen, reigning, heavenly Lord. Why does Christ give thanks in glory? Why is Christ presently praising his Father? For what does he have to give thanks?

The writer to the Hebrews places his statement about the praise of Christ that is, the praise coming forth from Christ, his statement about the thankful Christ in the midst of his discussion about Christ’s Sonship. But you will note that this discussion about Sonship has a purpose, an intention. So says the writer in Hebrews 2 verse 10, brings many sons to glory. This son brings many sons to glory. And verse 11 tells us that the son is not ashamed to call us his brethren, his most intimate relatives. The rejoicing, the thanksgiving of the Son and of the sons has to do with sonship itself. It has to do with what sonship has in view.

It has to do with inheritance, coming into possession of that which was promised. Hebrews 1 verse 2 tells us that the Son was appointed heir of all things. Elsewhere, Paul himself tells us that all things were made by, through, and for the Son. And Ephesians 1.22 tells us that God the Father has given the Son as head over all things to the Church. You see, Jesus Christ, the risen Lord, has in His Sonship received His inheritance as such.

And although this inheritance is variously described in the New Testament, it is always specifically related to glory and to the eternal state. But we who are united to Christ are now, by the grace of God, also called sons, and as His Church, we also have begun. to enjoy the inheritance, that inheritance mediated to us and found for us in Christ. Our thanksgiving issues from Christ and his continual praise of God for the blessing the blessing of his inheritance from the Father. Here is the fountain of our continual praise, and here is that thanksgiving’s continual orientation. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

Ephesians 1.3. That’s it. The imperative, therefore, from Paul concerning our ongoing thanksgiving and praise has for its content our joy for just such blessing.

I want you to think of that in light of your prayers, in light of your praise and your thanksgiving. Do you have a soul that is focused, you being a son, do you have a soul that is focused upon the inheritance, that starts with the inheritance and ends with the inheritance? But we press on. I read two verses from Ephesians 5 this morning.

Paul also sees the Christian life, not just as a life of continual praise and thanksgiving, but in terms of a continual reciprocal submission one to another in the Church in the fear of Christ, in the fear of Christ. That’s the correct reading of the text. If you have a King James in front of you, it says the fear of God. That’s incorrect. It is the fear of Christ.

Now, at first glance, it may appear to you that Paul has moved into a blatant contradiction, going from verse 20 to verse 21. After commanding us to offer continual thanksgiving in this prior verse, he now circumscribes us with fear, verse 21. Praise, but fear. We ask ourselves, doesn’t fear stand opposite to, mutually exclusive of, thanksgiving? In fact, do we not have multiple texts in the New Testament that seem to suggest that our fear has ended with the gospel’s arrival?

A text like Hebrews 2.15, which we read this morning, joining fear to death, death now having been vanquished. It’s over.

Another text, Romans 8.15, we are sons. We don’t live under the bondage of that spirit of fear. We live in the Spirit of God, alive, at liberty, as sons. tells us that we need not be afraid.

In John’s Gospel, that line is stated and repeated often forth. One example, John 14, verse 27. But while our fear has indeed ended with the Gospel’s arrival, there is a fear that remains and continues to be appropriate. So then, in the New Testament, without any sense of contradiction, to the message of gospel peace and grace, much less to its commands to always give thanks, there is this prescription for a proper, appropriate, reverential fear of God.

You may want to consult 1 Peter 2, verse 17, in this respect, but also the New Testament In fact, in the very context of Ephesians 5.21, does not shy away from prescribing fear. The word is fear. The word is fear. For Christians in relationship to one another.

Ephesians 5.33 finds Paul telling wives to fear their husbands. That’s the word that’s used.

Ephesians 6.5 finds him telling slaves to fear their masters. It has been suggested that much of the Church’s difficulty is that she can no longer make the proper determinations about an appropriate and proper fear that must continue, must always adorn the Church’s profession of faith. Leaving the social relationships aside, So as mentioned later by Paul, at the end of Ephesians 5 and at the beginning of Ephesians 6, the Church in its worship and praise has tended to move in the direction of the removal of fear from its activities and consideration. But in doing so, the Church has degenerated into a form of spirituality that is closer to a gross familiarity and a profane trivializing of the most holy matters.

We would do well to recapture David’s glorious line from Psalm 2, verse 11, Rejoice with trembling. rejoice with trembling. We would do well to keep in mind what the writer to the Hebrews says later, chapter 12, 29, for our God is a consuming fire. And we would do well to keep in mind what Jesus himself said, do not fear him who can destroy rather fear him who can cast body and soul into hell. Well, then we should not see any contradiction, should we, between our thanksgiving and an appropriate and proper fear of God on our part.

That should be obvious to us. But now, the question. Does Paul, in Ephesians 5.21, when he speaks of the fear of Christ, have in mind the fear we are to have of Christ as God? Here’s the question now. Does Paul, in that statement, when he speaks about the fear of Christ, have in mind that fear we are to have of Christ as God? We fear God, we fear Christ. Why? Because Christ is God. Is that what Paul means? No. That is not what he means.

Oh boy, now we’ve dug a ditch. It’s almost ten after. Now I’m not going to ask you to come back tonight, because I know you won’t. It never works. It never works. But I want you to feel the force of this, because it’s utter genius, the genius of the Holy Spirit.

Actually, what Paul means follows the exact same line that he followed in verse 20. Hold on. If you were with me on verse 20, then stay with me through verse 21. The fear of which Paul speaks in verse 21 is not the fear we are to have of Christ because Christ is God. Not that such a thought is foreign to Paul’s gospel, he expresses it in many places.

Rather, the fear of Christ spoken of in Ephesians 5.21 is that fear which Christ himself had for God. and that for the performance of all of his mediating work, as he is subject to the Father and looks to him for the reward. Jesus Christ, then, not only perfectly praised Not only perfectly gives thanks, but he perfectly fears.

And that’s all for you. That’s all for you. Such is the nature of his saving office. Such is the sufficiency of that office. Before you pray, he’s praying. Before you give thanks, He’s given thanks. Before you fear, He has feared. And now you, by grace, have been brought into the perfections of that sufficient mediation for you. There is nothing like this. There is nothing in the whole world like this. All spiritual and religious duty and obligation is, first of all, performed by Him. before you lift a finger. He’s done it all. And now you’re privileged, as sons, to enter into that. Jesus Christ perfectly fears his Father in his obedient submission, in his obedient subjection. You see the theme? yourselves one another in fear. He subjects himself perfectly to his father.

We now fear after Christ and because of him and through him. And we obediently now subject ourselves to one another in the fear of Christ because We are savingly united to Him and to such appropriate and proper and perfect fear as He has exhibited, demonstrated, accomplished for us. We always give thanks because we are in Christ who does the same. And we subject ourselves, one another, in the fear of Christ, because we are in the Christ, who on our behalf, perfectly fears God.

And has subjected himself, even to us. Think of it. Subjected himself, even to us. That we might be saved. I don’t know how you feel, but for me, it just doesn’t get any better than this. Let’s pray. Where are we, O God, without Jesus? Where are we, O Lord, without the perfection of his prayer, praise, the perfection of his fear? Lord, we are lost, and we are without strength. But you have been pleased, O God, that we be found and that we be given strength in him, your Son, our Savior.

Father, we pray that even as we offer up this petition, we would be confident that it enters into the intercessions of Christ and that we would be praying it with full determination of constant praise and a perpetual fear, a fear of you, that we might live rightly, appropriately, unto the full gain of that reward and possession promised.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

September 29, 1996
Christ, All in All

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Ephesians 5-6” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 22, 1996.

About this sermon

Paul uses ‘mystery’ in Ephesians 1:9 in a specific sense, and it stands against the modern church’s fascination with personal testimonies as a rival authority. Ephesians 1:10 claims that Christ sums up all things and is all in all, and that claim reframes what mystery means. Paul consistently puts redemptive-historical theology ahead of the systematic kind.

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Sermon transcript

We are beginning our scripture reading this morning in Ephesians chapter one. Ephesians chapter one, and we are reading the first fourteen verses. Let’s give our attention now to God’s infallible word. Beginning at verse one, Ephesians chapter one, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who have blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace, wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ, in whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth.” the gospel of your salvation, in whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.”

Submit yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ. Why? Submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. Pray with me now.

Our God, we would not shy away from nor be embarrassed by the gospel and its full declaration. Surely in it, O Lord, we are brought up against the enormity of our sin and the hopelessness of our situation, apart from you and apart from Christ. For Lord, we are not simply buried beneath the deluge of our own offenses. We are joined to our Father Adam and in him condemned. But what glory and grace is obvious now in the gospel the good news which has come in Christ, that we, by him, through his death and resurrection, might be delivered from our sins and saved unto eternal life, and, Father, in this gospel we glory. Bless us, your children, as we give our attention to your word this morning, and may we be built up in our confidence that we know and love our Savior, But also, Lord, may we be built up in our resolve to live for him. We ask also that you would be gracious to those who do not believe that they would be brought to faith through the preaching of the gospel here and throughout the world. For Jesus’ sake, amen.

Let me tell you once more what stands at the center of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. You will find it in chapter 1, verses 9 through 11. God having made known unto us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he has purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather into one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him in whom also we have obtained an inheritance.”

Now, I recognize that what Paul says here is truly a mouthful. In fact, this mouthful is hardly the whole story, for some of you might well know that in the Greek, his sentence runs from verse 3 to the conclusion of verse 14. A mouthful, indeed. But possibly, as these phrases are strung together and as they run along, you may well feel that Paul is here being more the poet than the preacher, that he is more interested in the emotional impact and power of his words than in their content. meaning to carry you along by the music of the thing, rather than the message particularly. Therefore, it may well be that you have not concerned yourself too much with the meaning of Paul’s words here, but I ask you to look again at what he has to say in setting before you this chief concern. First of all, you will have to understand what Paul means by the word mystery. He doesn’t mean here mystery in the typical religious sense of the word.

You know, mystery as associated with the religious secret arts that pertain to the hidden workings of spiritual reality as they impact natural reality. such mysteries as have been discovered by, or have been revealed to the enlightened and passed on to their initiates in the interests of worshipping, anticipating, protecting oneself against, and even manipulating the spiritual realities that work in and behind the natural world.

In its primitive form, such an approach to mystery expressed itself in religious magic, witchcraft, wizardry, shamanism, necromancy, astrology, etc. Those things spoken against, condemned in the law of God. In Paul’s day, the mysteries had graduated into sophisticated popular religious movements, overlaid with a rather affected philosophical sophistication and justification. Even to the construct of systems, and one system in particular that was eventually known as Gnosticism, In our own day, we witness the great-great-grandchildren of the ancient pagan mystery religions, and even of Gnosticism itself, in a resurgent neo-paganism in the New Age movement, and in the various attempts to Christianize the basic religious impulse at work in these phenomena. the attempt to Christianize in the nineteenth century, particularly observed in the Christian science movement overseen by Mary Baker Eddy, and the offshoots of that movement in our own time, in Norman Vincent Peale’s religion of positive thinking and in Robert Schuller’s gospel of possibility thinking. Here is religion of the mind, religion of the mind, by which people attempt, through emotive, mental method and technique, to gain access to the secrets and mysteries that lie behind and within nature.

The secrets and the mysteries have always been there, determining world affairs and the details—yes, even the minute details—of the individual life. They have always been intuited by the Illuminati, always accessible to anyone who has been chosen by them for initiation, and would be subjected to their methods and their techniques.

Paul’s declaration of the mystery in Ephesians 1 verse 9 stands deliberately opposite such a religious posture. This means the attempt to read Paul’s position as if it were essentially an effort by a Christianized Jew to marry his religious heritage to Gentile religious practice in order to gain a hearing, in order to make an impact, is utterly, categorically wrong.

J. Gresham Machen, in his 1921 book, The Origin of Paul’s Religion, stated the case well and convincingly against such a synthesis. What we need to see in the Apostle is not an accommodation by the Church to her pagan but a refutation of that pagan environment. Mystery for Paul, therefore, is not the secrets of the universe always held from view until revealed in the minds of the favored few. Instead, mystery for Paul is bound to the hidden counsel of God, now and only now brought to light. That’s the point. not in an event in the inner mental illumination, but by the direct work of God himself in history, by which history itself has been dramatically, decisively, finally transformed. You want to talk about New Age? I’ll give you New Age. The New Age has a calendar date. It is marked from outside Jerusalem’s city walls on a cross. and it is dated from the empty tomb.

In other words, the mystery was not at all times available, accessible, in the air somewhere, to be grasped, grasped by those minds properly attuned, as Gentile religion taught. Rather, the mystery, in keeping with the sovereignty of God over history, was concealed until it was brought into clear view by the act of God in sending His own dear Son for the redemption of His people, accomplished by the shedding of His own blood. through his vindication in his resurrection from the dead and his exaltation to glory into what Paul describes here as the heavenly places. To put it so safely, Paul sees things in the first order in terms of B.C. and A.D. before Christ, and in the times of his established Lordship, in the year of our Lord.

He does not approach things then, first of all, in terms of religious ideas. I will hammer away at this as long as I have breath. And you may be a bit weary of the pounding, but I am not going to stop. Paul does not approach things, first of all, in terms of a religious idea, a thought in That is not what is going on with the man. The Apostle Paul neither is approaching things, first of all, in terms of an ethical ideal. That is the furthest thing from his mind. Nor does he approach revelation as the divulging of specific truth, or the disclosure of information about facts and events, be they even related to the universe’s secrets. Hang with me in this now.

His interest, first of all, primarily concerns the great revolution that has taken place in history. No, not a revolution in history, but the revolution of history itself, of time, of existence. The historical reality of that which, until now, did not exist as such, it having been kept back by God until in the giving of His Son, the fullness of the times, that is, the end of time, the goal itself had arrived, had come. According to the Apostle, here is the true and central content of his ministry.

To underscore it once more, he is not going to preach, first of all, a religious idea, or an ethical goal, much less is he going to preach his own experience. For the issue is not his history, but history itself and what has happened to it because of Christ. I am taking exception, and I make no apology for it, I am taking exception to the general theme of the evangelical world today. I will not preach testimony.

You can catch it on TV on Saturday nights, but you will not catch it here. Why? Because it will eventually obscure and eclipse the history of Christ. That’s why. You will eventually reduce the gospel to telling your story and your history, and you will not be able to understand appropriately and rightly what has taken place in history because of Jesus Christ himself.

I plead with you on this. I am claiming Paul for my corner, and you might judge that that is presumption. I hope it’s faithfulness. to the text. And trust that by so I am honoring the gospel and the Savior himself. Here is the true and central content of his ministry. Something has happened, an event has taken place.

And in describing his ministry, he speaks of himself later in this epistle, chapter 6, verse 20, as an ambassador in chains for the sake of this very message. His being a ministry of proclamation, of witness to that which took place in Christ, and instruction to the end that we all might grasp well our place in this dispensation, this administration of the end of the times, the fullness of the times.

It is in this connection with Paul’s proclamation of, witness to, and instruction in, the revelation of the mystery. that his commands to wives and husbands, to children and parents, to slaves and masters are to be understood. People do not get what Paul says to wives and husbands, children and parents, and slaves and masters, because they do not get Ephesians 1, 9 and 10. However, before we move into a fuller exposition of those latter verses in Ephesians, we want to finish out our remarks on this key text in the first chapter, particularly that tenth verse. Here Paul explains, or maybe even better at least, provides entrance into what he means by the administration of the fullness of times.

This administration is what he calls a summing up of all things in Christ, things of heaven, things on earth. King James has gathering together into one. The New American Standard has summing up all things in Christ. Now, we might gain better understanding of these words if we give them a bit fuller translation, one suggested by Herman Ritterbos. What is in mind is the summing up of all things, or a summing up anew of all things in Christ. Again, event front and center. What Paul has in mind is the gathering together in and by a concrete historical event. the gathering together of all things in Christ, and this made necessary because the integrality, the interrelationships, and the meanings of all these things lacked their proper definition and expression until Christ came, died, was raised, and ascended. For the Apostle Paul, this summing up has everything to do with the fact that Christ, the eternal Son of God, became man.

But as man, he became second Adam for us. This is the focus of his effort and ministry and work on our behalf. The prospect of the integrality, the interrelationships, and the means of all things of heaven and in earth, lost to humanity in Adam, our first covenantal head, are now summed up anew, finally and conclusively, in Christ, the second Adam, the new man, the head of the new humanity. Harmony and peace are to be found in him. such harmony and peace as are lost in our first Father.

Harmony and peace are to be found in him by whom God is reconciled to humanity, and humanity to God. even to the point of pulling down partitions between peoples, between Jews and Gentiles, even to the point of fitting man to his environment, and that perfectly, and that environment to man in the heavenly places for which man was originally destined. even to the point of making plain the meaning of creation itself and of life in all of its vast details and particularity, hence all that is true in science, culture, and philosophy, even to the point of making plain and intelligible all the strands of world history, but in particular the history of redemption, the biblical revelation, as they converge in him.

Christ, in the accomplishment of his work as the second Adam, the head of the new humanity, becomes the formation of kingdom, rule, throne, palace, kingship itself. All categories are to be understood in relationship to him—temple, tabernacle, sanctuary, altar, sacrifice, mediation, and the priesthood. Pulpit, proclamation, commandment, prophetic suffering, and prophetic office. head, headship, body, individual members, assembly, people, congregation, church. Christ, in the accomplishment of his work as the second Adam, the head of the new humanity, becomes the summary meaning of creation itself, of the front, of patriarchal history, of the exodus, pilgrimage, conquest, establishment, theocracy, exile, restoration, and gospel presentation.

And Christ, in the accomplishment of his work as second Adam, head of the new humanity and of the new creation, is the summation of being to all created things, all created beings, visible and invisible, whether they be principalities, powers, mighty ones or dominions, angelic or demonic. For they too have their meaning only in relationship to him and the design to which God has ordained them. Here truly is the one whom Paul describes in Colossians as all in all. Two things remain in conclusion for this message.

What Paul says here stands opposite, to be sure, a Gentile understanding of mystery, but it also stands opposite myth. Myth creates a history for the sake of meaning, so that the story constructed has no actual historical validity. In fact, myth needs no history.

Paul sees Christ as truly and genuinely historical, and as the summation of all actual creational historical development. And I might add, that Paul has no more doubt about the first Adam’s historicity than he does about the second. Modern theologians have claimed that biblical writers have clothed their essential message in myth, and that we must extract the meaning from the myth if we are to get a proper understanding of it. Actually, the biblical writers are exposing the mythologies of the world and answering them with the proclamation of what God has done in the history of redemption, even as He brings that history to summation in His Son, Jesus Christ. We believe in the God who acts.

But finally, what Paul has to say here stands opposite the notion of system. I realize I’m getting myself into trouble here. Because if the Reformed faith, the Reformed Church, has stood for anything through the ages, it has stood for a well-defined, well-crafted system. I don’t want you to misunderstand me. I am not the enemy of systematic theology, and I am not opposed to systems. I believe our confession is systematically laid out, and I have taken an ordination vow with regard to the system of doctrine taught in the Westminster standards.

Nevertheless, it is important for you to see that what the Apostle Paul is saying here does, in a certain sense, stand opposite the notion of systems. This is just an amplification of what I said earlier. You must realize that Paul’s intention is not to introduce you to a system of thought.

His intention is to introduce you with the reality of what God has done. System will flow forth from the act. It will be a construct. It will be, yes, a genuine mental activity in which we place organization to the facts of life and organize them as best we can.

But Paul’s intention is not, first of all, to introduce you to a system of thought. Rather, his interest is to introduce you to the reality of what God has done. Neither is his interest to introduce you to a so-called world and life view, if you mean by that an intellectual construct by which you set before yourself a central idea from which all other ideas can be deduced and inferred in proper equilibrium and balance. Paul’s interest is the gospel, the good news.

Hear what that word communicates. It’s news about an event. That’s what makes it news, and it’s good news. It’s the good news about what God has done in Jesus Christ, about what has actually come about in space and time because of God’s great grace to us. It is about what actually is. It is about the state of affairs that God has made because he has acted in Christ. Paul’s interest, then, is in what is actually so because of God’s activity in bringing to light the mystery of his will, now in the fullness, the end of the times, in which all things are summed up as if afresh, anew, reaching the exposition of their true meanings and destiny in and through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Here is Paul’s message to the Ephesians, it is what lies behind his comments to wives, husbands, children, parents, slaves, masters, and I trust that it informs you. in all that you say and do. God has come. He has acted. He has acted for you. And now everything is different. And all things are being made new.

Father, we pray that we might be attuned well to the message from your Word and the message of the Apostle. We thank you for the uncompromising way in which he sets forth his concern, that which drives him and motivates him. Truly, the revelation in the Gospel of what you have done of what you have accomplished, this even bringing time itself to its proper conclusion, and thus, Lord, setting before us the proper and even appropriately exegeted meaning of all things, truly as those things are summed up in Christ our Savior. Lord, may our Savior then be front and center to us even as he is the central figure of this drama that has been played out on the plane of this creation. And Lord, may it please you to grant us mercy even as we tailor all of our words and works

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

September 22, 1996
Holy Warfare in the Household

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Ephesians 5-6” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 15, 1996.

About this sermon

Paul’s journeys and imprisonment, and the debated question of his authorship of Ephesians, set the stage for the letter’s real subject, becoming what believers already are in Christ. That becoming is holy warfare, waged inside the ordinary household by husbands and wives, children, and slaves alike. Domestic life is a real battlefield.

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Sermon transcript

This morning we begin our scripture reading in Paul’s letter to the Romans. Paul’s letter to the Romans. Reading a few verses in chapter 1. We are reading verses 16 and 17. Romans 1, 16 and 17. Give your attention to God’s word. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith.” And turning over to Galatians chapter 4, Galatians 4. verses 4 and 5. But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of some. And then turning to Ephesians, the first chapter, beginning with verse one.

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ. According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace, wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in himself. that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ in whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.”

And one final verse. Ephesians 5 verse 22, wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. Pray with me. Our God, we would confess that there is nothing as powerful as your word in this world, even as your word is made effectual to the salvation of sinners and that to the ends of the earth. Father, may our hearts agree with yours, even as your word goes forth for the reclamation of sinners. We, having been redeemed by you, we pray our God for the full complement of your elect, that they may be gathered into your church by the preaching of the word, and there, O God, trained in your spirit for life in praise of you now and forever. Hear us, O God, even as we pray for others, but hear us also as we pray for ourselves, that the word that is preached here today and is heard by us may be effectual in us and may achieve your ends. O God, may you be glorified even as we agree with you and your word. This we ask through Jesus Christ, the one who delighted in your will and in your word to do it. We pray in his name. Amen.

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians belongs to a group of letters identified as his prison epistles. Paul was arrested, you may recall, in Jerusalem following his third missionary journey, and from Jerusalem he was taken to Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast. where he remained imprisoned for two years. Because he appealed to the emperor, he was finally taken to Rome for trial. As Acts 28 verse 30 tells us, he was a prisoner in Rome for at least two more years, and it was there that he wrote four letters, the so-called prison epistles. Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, and our present letter is letter to the Ephesians. These last three letters, Colossians, Philemon, and Ephesians, are closely linked.

Colossians and Philemon are linked through the figure of Onesimus. Philemon’s runaway slave who had been converted by Paul while Paul was still in chains in Rome. Onesimus then served Paul faithfully while Paul was still in prison, but now Paul is sending Onesimus home back to his master Philemon. You can note the connection between Onesimus and Philemon in Colossians 4 verse 9 and also Philemon verse 10. But this fellow Philemon was also a leader in the Colossian church, the church that met at Colossae.

And the assumption is that the letters to the church at Colossae and to Philemon were sent at the very same time, Onesimus the slave accompanying their delivery. But while Colossians and Philemon are linked now through this fellow Onesimus, the letters of Colossians, Philemon, and Ephesians are linked through another man, a man named Tychicus.

Tychicus, it seems, served at this time in Paul’s life as the Apostle’s official emissary to the churches in Asia Minor. Onesimus accompanies Tychicus as Tychicus, Paul’s official emissary, carries Paul’s letters to the churches in Asia Minor. the region where the church at Colossae is positioned, as well as the church of Ephesus.

Now, this is spelled out for us again as we look at Colossians chapter 4, verses 7 through 9. For there, Tychicus is mentioned in connection with this whole matter. But Tychicus is also mentioned in the letter to the Ephesians. He is spoken of in chapter 6, verses 21 and 22, and the inference of those verses is that he is the courier of the letter to the Ephesians. So, it would seem, summing things up to this point, Paul, as prisoner in Rome, in about the year 62 AD, sends a trusted disciple named Tychicus to Asia Minor with three letters.

Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon. Tychicus takes with him Onesimus, Philemon’s runaway slave, now a born-again Christian who is being restored to his master Philemon, a leader in the Colossian church. The picture I have just drawn for you, however, does have a major problem, and it concerns the letter to the Ephesians.

If you recall your apostolic history recorded for us in the Book of Acts, you will remember a few things about Paul’s strong attachment to the Ephesian congregation. His testimony is that he labored among the Ephesians for three years. That testimony appears in Acts chapter 20, verse 31. But not only this, it is very difficult to forget the very moving scene in which that Acts 20, 31 text appears. It is the account of Paul’s farewell to the elders in the church of Ephesus. You might recall the embraces and the tears, the fact that Paul falls down on the shore side and prays as he departs, thinking that he will never see these people again.

The bond between Paul and the Ephesians is very strong. The affections are high. But the odd thing about the letter to the Ephesians is the total absence of any kind of personal greeting to the people of Ephesus. And in this regard, this letter to the Ephesians stands out among all Paul’s letters. Also, you might note, as you read through the letter to the Ephesians, a couple of further For at certain junctures, Paul sounds as if he had never visited these people at all.

For example, chapter 1, verse 15, the verse just beyond the point which we read this morning. This verse has been read as if Paul were saying that he had come to a knowledge of these folk in Ephesus, not by first-hand experience, but through a report from someone else about them. You join this verse in the first chapter to the second verse of the third chapter, which has been read along similar lines. It has been judged that these are comments that we would hardly expect from someone who had founded the Church and then at one time spent three years among its members.

When you add to these verses that we just noted the fact that a full 90 words appear in Ephesians, which appear nowhere else in Paul’s letters, and also a full one-third of the words and phrases in Ephesians are duplicated in Colossians, and the fact that certain major manuscripts, early manuscripts, do not have the place name Ephesus in the first verse of the first chapter, With all of this in hand, you can well imagine the rush of liberal critics who are well-poised to convince us that Paul never wrote this letter at all. Instead, so these liberals suggest, We have here the work of a very capable student of Paul, but not Paul himself. This very capable student of Paul, so say the liberals, is making an effort through this letter to keep the memory of the Apostle alive sometime close to the end of the first Christian century. And in order to gain a certain authenticity for his writing, he grabs hold of the pre-existent letter to the Colossians and uses it as his guide.

J. Gresham Machen was quite aware of all of these liberal arguments, but he dismissed them in favor of those who had suggested that Ephesians, even minus the place name in Ephesians 1.1, is actually meant to be originally a general letter meant for general circulation among the churches of Asia Minor, including that largely Gentile congregation at Ephesus. Some have even suggested, although Machen does not make this suggestion himself, some have made the suggestion that Ephesians is actually the so-called last letter mentioned by Paul in Colossians 4.16, the one that was presently being read to the saints at Laodicea that would then be passed on to the saints at Colossae for their perusal as well. A letter, so the theory goes, destined to be circulated to Ephesus also. Our letter to the Ephesians bears the title to the Ephesians, then, because of the prominence of that church among the churches to which this letter was originally sent.

As to my own convictions, as to where I stand in this discussion, I do not hesitate to say to you that I stand with Machen. And with the conviction of historic Orthodox Christianity, Ephesians is a genuine letter from the hand of Paul, the apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I also affirm with Machen that this letter was a general epistle meant for circulation among the churches of Asia Minor, a territory in which the church at Ephesus was a prominent congregation. But having assured ourselves of this fact, What do we now conclude about the theme or the purpose of this letter, the subject matter of it? Again, the liberals and even a surprising and increasing number of evangelicals have made some rather startling suggestions along these lines.

The key to their suggestions centers in the failure of the apostolic Church’s hope. The key to their suggestions centers in the failure of the apostolic Church’s hope. According to them, there was a point in the early Church in which a crisis overtook the people of God, and that because Jesus had not returned as he promised and as the Church expected. This failure, according to these critics, be they liberal or evangelical, created a crisis of confidence. It also created a void. with this hope failed, then other things would have to rush in to fill the void in the religious piety of the people of God.

The letter to the Ephesians is written for the purpose of filling that void, and here, filling up the void created by the failure of the apostolic hope is the message of the glory of the Church in and for the world. The glory of the Church in and for the world. Now, I know that this is somewhat abstract for you as yet, but hang with me as we work through this and unravel it. Are you with me so far? There are those who approach the Epistle to the Ephesians who say that this letter is the product of the failed hope in the Church in the first century, and now Christians must look to something else other than the return of Christ as the foundation for their religious piety and devotion. These critics have suggested to us that what now fills the void in the Epistle to the Ephesians is a message not about the coming Christ, but about the present Church, and the Church’s glory in and for the world.

The Church itself, then, is a society. The Church is a society which reveals God’s purpose to the world. Now, if we put that in modern terms, this is what we have. The Church as society intersects with the world as community, so that the ultimate usefulness and goal for the letter to the Ephesians is not a heavenly life which impinges upon life here in this world, but the improved, more harmonious life for the wide community of mankind. That is the message.

Do you see where we’re going? Now, those who make this proposal make no apologies whatsoever for setting the Paul we know from elsewhere in the New Testament over against the Paul that we discover in the letter to the Ephesians. But further, these folks tell us that this message of unity and community from Ephesians actually displaces the more provincial, the more Jewish, the more judicial, the more legal theology of sacrifice and justification that we find elsewhere in Paul in such letters as Romans and Galatians. and that since the hope of future heavenly glory, related to the return of Christ, has reigned, has dissipated, and is near eclipse, now a more realistic, a more natural confidence in ordinary life is set in its place and prevails. The ultimate effect of the message from the letter to the Ephesians, so say these folks, plays itself out then in the concrete commands from the letters of later chapters, chapters 4 through 6, and particularly those commands that begin at verse 22 in chapter 5.

The command, wives, submit yourselves to your husbands as unto the Lord. Here we have then the broad and formative expression of that practical religion of social balance, calculated to save the Church from the charge of being too radical on the one hand, but also on the other, guaranteeing the Church its ongoing role as social and political reformer. To this end, therefore, so suggest these critics. Ephesians may preach that wives must be subject to their own husbands, thus honoring the common current social mores of the day, thus saving herself—that is, the Church—from the charge of being too socially revolutionary, too radical.

But we know, enlightened folk that we are, twentieth century enlightened folk that we are, we know in our perusal of the Epistles to the Ephesians that it carries within its own command that the spirit of sexual equality in which mutual submission of both wives and husbands to one another finally means that neither have to submit to the other. Now are you with me? Now do you see where it was going? Let me state it for you once more.

The Church becomes, at one and the same time, conservative in that it is not socially radical. At the same time, it becomes the perpetual agent of social and political reform within society, and that is the Church’s purpose. In fact, she has no other purpose according to these enlightened minds.

Ephesians then may well preach, wives must subject themselves to their own husbands, but we all know, do we not, that this very message carries within itself the spirit of sexual equality in which mutual submission of both wives and husbands finally means neither must submit to the other. Ephesians may well preach, children obey your parents, thus tipping its hat to the social mores of the first century. But we know, do we not, that this very command carries the spirit whereby a just and propitious view of children’s autonomies and rights will finally win out and prevail in the end. Ephesians may well preach, slaves obey your masters. But we know, do we not, that it carries the spirit that actually obliterates such distinctions and promotes a truly egalitarian and classless society.

I just read all this in a commentary this last week. I’m not making this up. so much for the modern interpretation of Ephesians. But if the Paul who wrote Romans and Galatians is the author of Ephesians also, and if the Paul of Ephesians is not to be pivoted over against the Paul of Romans and Galatians, and if The Paul of Ephesians, Romans and Galatians is the Paul who, in the Holy Spirit, according to the design of God, continues to address the Church today. What does this ambassador of Christ, this apostle of the Lord Jesus, the steward of the mysteries of God, want us to hear and to continue to hear from his letter to the Ephesians? What is his message?

It is this, that the revelation of the righteousness of God declared by Paul in Romans 1.17 has now, in fact, taken place.

That the fullness of times declared by Paul in Galatians 4.4 has arrived. And this means, as Paul takes up the pen for the letter to the Ephesians, that the resolution of the mystery, the mystery hid from the foundation of the world, has now come into full view with the appearance of the administration of the fullness of times, namely the summing up of all things in Christ, Ephesians 1, 9, and 10. That’s what Paul wants you to hear. Something monumental and unprecedented has taken place, because God has acted in and through his Son. This mystery of which the Apostle speaks in the first chapter of Ephesians, he mentions later on.

He sees it as meaning the inclusion of Gentiles with Jews. of Gentiles with Jews as fellow-heirs, fellow-members of the body, as fellow-partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel, Ephesians 3.6. According to Paul, the coming of the revelation of the righteousness of God, the arrival of the fullness of times, and the solving of the mystery hid from the foundational world means that history itself has reached its goal and touched its very end. It’s as if time stops. This is the perspective of the Apostle. Something final has occurred. An end point has been reached. God has done that which is unprecedented and monumental.

But that which he is saying also means that the elect, through Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension, have been brought into their highest and final environment, that environment which the apostle in this letter calls the heavenly place. This means that we, the elect of God, the Church of God, are blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ, chapter 1, verse 3. And because Christ has Himself been seated in the heavenly places, chapter 1, verse 20, this means that we also have been raised up with Him and seated with Him in those heavenly places, chapter 2, verse 6. in this heavenly assembly is then the gathering of Jew and Gentile in a final fashion, and that in Christ. This gathering being the filling up and the building up of the ultimate temple, the structure of which is made manifest in the Church.

Ephesians 1, 22, 23, Ephesians 2, 20. We are now using temple imagery here. It is this new and holy reality that confounds even and particularly the rulers, the dark, the wicked rulers and authorities that pray in those heavenly places. Chapter 3, verse 10.

Thus in the scene as the Apostle is portraying it. We are made out to be in our identity, not just those who are dressed up in the privileges of the priesthood. We common believers, dressed up in the privileges of the priesthood, that we might enter into the very sanctuary. He goes even further than that. He says we are the sanctuary. You are the temple.

Ephesians 2.22. But going beyond this even, He makes of our identity an identity that is dressed up in the armor of a warrior, as if we were priests decked out for battle, as if we were priestly kings and kingly priests who fight against spiritual wickedness in heavenly places, chapter 6, verse 12. Let me tell you what the message of Ephesians is.

Be what you are. Be what you are. Be what you have been made to be. because of God’s now making plain the solution of the mystery. Be what you have been made to be because of His grace in saving you by faith, thus positioning you in the heavenly places. Be what you are as a new man in Christ, even as Christ is that new man. Be what you are even as you are a heavenly sanctuary of God, even as you are an eschatological priesthood, even as you are the army of God, the warriors of the Lord, the kingly priests and the priestly kings, whose holy warfare is waged by wives.

By wives! Ephesians 5.22. And how is it waged by wives? Ironically, paradoxically, it is waged by wives in that they submit to their husbands. That’s how wives make spiritual war. That’s how they attack unseen heavenly wickedness. and displace spiritual wickedness in heavenly places. And I tell you also that holy warfare is waged by children.

Now, you kids sit here and you may think, this guy talks mysteries to me. I don’t understand a word that he says, but I want to tell you this word from the epistle to the Ephesians, that children wage holy warfare. How? How? This is the Apostle Paul’s youth program. Obey your parents. And he tells us, lastly in this list, that holy warfare is waged by slaves. Paul himself is a slave. He’s even more, presently, he’s a prisoner in chains. How can a slave, how can a prisoner wage war?

Paul says, by obeying your masters, even as you see the Lord himself beyond your earthly Now this is what Ephesians meant when Paul wrote it in the first century, and it’s what it means to us as we are about to enter the 21st century. And I dare say this is what the letter to the Ephesians will always mean. and I’m hoping that you agree.

Let’s pray. O Lord, may we all be dressed up in the armor of the gospel, even as it is fit for us, since we have been brought into the temple sanctuary, which is not just a sanctuary, but a palace, a place in which the king himself rules and reigns, this palace being itself an armory. And from this holy and exalted sanctuary and palace and armory, we go forth to wage holy war. But teach us, O Lord, the wonderful mysteries of the gospel, even their ironies and paradoxes. For our Savior has waged holy war in and through the cross. And we, Lord, pick up the instruments of weakness, at least in the eyes of the world. And yet, O God, we are made strong, victorious, in and through him. In our respective positions, O God, May we perceive the nature of the conflict, and may we be energetic for the fight.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

September 15, 1996
Imperative Flows From Indicative

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Ephesians 5-6” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 8, 1996.

About this sermon

Every command in Ephesians 5-6’s household instructions depends on a prior indicative, what God has already done in Christ, rather than the other way around. Christ’s own coming is itself a new act of obedience, God himself obeying on his people’s behalf. New obedience follows from that gift; it doesn’t earn it.

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Sermon transcript

This morning we are reading from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. We are at chapter 5, verse 22. This is Ephesians, chapter 5, beginning at verse 22. This is the word of God. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord, For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the savior of the body.

Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself, for no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it even as the Lord the Church. for we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.

Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart as unto Christ. not with thy service as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with good will doing service as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening, knowing that your master also is in heaven. Neither is there respect of persons with him.

Over the next few months, I will be speaking to you from this particular portion of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, chapter 5, verse 22 through chapter 6, verse 9. And as we make our way through these messages, you may also want to consult the parallel to these verses in Paul’s letter to the Colossians, chapter 3, verse 18, This morning I want to tell you why I am moving to a series on these verses. My objective of late has been to progress with my preaching into a consideration of the Christian’s daily life. keeping in mind the imperatives of the faith laid upon us because of our union with Jesus Christ our Savior.

Now, before I go any farther with this, it may well be imperative that I define imperatives. The imperatives of the faith are the commands. They are the expressed obligations that are set before us in the Word of God. In the Bible, an imperative is a stated directive. For example, the Ten Commandments could easily be called the Ten Imperatives.

Now, I deliberately preached on 1 Corinthians 13 in our previous series because I wanted us to consider or build up for a consideration of the imperatives of daily Christian living. I realize that what I’ve just said may leave you somewhat baffled. Because in your mind, as you review 1 Corinthians 13, and if you had it open before you, it was on the page before you, you would realize that you would not find, you would not discover one imperative in it. That’s why, through the entirety of 1 Corinthians 13, that grand and eloquent chapter on love, you do not find one single imperative to love. Not that the imperative doesn’t occur in the immediate context. It does.

You can check Chapter 14, verse 1 of 1 Corinthians, where Paul writes, Pursue, or as the King James Version has it, follow after love. But I believe the way in which Paul sets up his argument in that 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians is very instructive for us. in understanding better the whole matter of Biblical imperatives or Biblical commands. The Apostle has maintained throughout the entirety of that thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians what we might call a descriptive move, or what grammarians call the indicative move. Because by it, there is the indication of a particular state of affairs, a statement of fact, in distinction from a command. There is an indication of the way things are. Now to say this, in keeping with biblical temperament is not to say the same thing as a definition, although definitions may well be extracted from the indicative statements, the descriptive statements given by the Apostle.

Paul’s usage here in 1 Corinthians 13 is in keeping with the general biblical temperament. It has, in view, an indicative mood indicating the way things are because of an action that has taken place, and as that is related to salvation, particularly the action of God in Christ, revealed and manifest in the world. Paul’s intention, therefore, in 1 Corinthians 13, is not to provide you with a dictionary definition of love—love is this, love is that—in keeping with what you might find in a dictionary, but rather his intention is to provide you with the historical reality of that love because of what God has done. Because of what God has accomplished.

I know that this is a strange way of thinking for you. You have been schooled in dictionaries. In effect, you’ve been schooled in a Greek mode of thinking. It is all generally analytical. It is not historical or dynamic, but that is the language of Scripture. You move, first of all, to the indicative, or the accomplishment, or the action of God, and if there is definition to be given, if there is analysis to be provided, it rises out of that indicative, out of the action of God. You cannot separate definition from the action and activity of God. That’s the biblical way of thinking. You must start with event. You can’t start with idea. it turns most of your education on its head. Upside down.

Specifically then, if you are to understand love, You would do well to consult another biblical author who said, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life. You see, love is grounded in event, in action. Elsewhere, this same author, I’m quoting the Apostle John, writes, we love because he first loved us. In other words, our love rests in and upon the prayer act of God.

The love of which Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 13 rests in and upon God, who revealed His love in this way, even as Paul testified in Romans 5.8. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. and the love that is expected of us. Not just set forth before us, the love that is expected of us is to be found in Jesus Christ, the very act of God. Therefore, Paul means by way of the indicative of 1 Corinthians 13, to set before us Jesus Christ himself, the act of God, as the only foundation for the imperatives, the commands that would fall upon us.

Now, this pattern subtly, yet really presented by Paul is in keeping with the uniform structure of things throughout Scripture. The command or the imperative, the call to obedience, given to Adam originally in the Garden of Eden, has as its foundation the indicative of God’s action in Adam’s creation. the act precedes the command. Consider the Ten Commandments, or the entirety of the legal administration revealed under Moses. They have as their foundation the action of God when the Israelites are delivered from Egypt in the essence. event, act, precedes command. And isn’t this what is confirmed by what we are taught in the shorter catechism? Questions 43 and 44 pick up on this matter quite well. Question 43 marks out for us the indicative The historical act of God, what is the preface to the Ten Commandments, the catechism asks.

The preface to the Ten Commandments is in these words, I am the Lord by God which hath brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. That’s action. That’s event. God has done something. marks the imperative, and at the same time joins the imperative to that indicative.

What does the preface to the Ten Commandments teach us? asks the catechism. The preface to the Ten Commandments teaches us that because God is the Lord and our God and Redeemer, he having revealed himself to be such by his saving activity, the indicative, therefore we are bound to keep all his commandments. The act precedes the command. The Heidelberg Catechism, in its own way, follows this exact same pattern. It places the exposition of the commandments within an exposition of our faithfulness to God, the faithfulness or thankfulness that we owe to God because He has delivered us from all our sin and misery.

But now in thinking about this, and I hope we are all thinking this morning, because this is a thinking sermon. In thinking about this, it is very easy for us to become confused. The ideas and the order of things may become all jumbled up in our brain. Well, you may be thinking, well, you say act precedes command, but as I recall, law precedes gospel. Commandment comes before action. But I want you to keep in mind that it is in a fallen world that we are made especially sensitive through the commandments that we break of the need for a new act of God on the basis of which there will be a renewed obedience on our part.

Adam’s sin demands God’s new action if Adam is to live with God and if he is to obey him. If Israel’s sins demand God’s new, restorative act, if she is to live with God, if she is to obey Him, our sin, in the face of the imperatives of God, drives us to God’s saving work in Jesus Christ.

That in each case, be it Adam’s or Israel’s or ours, this movement from imperative to indicative, it seems to contradict what I’ve been saying about the precedence of indicative over imperative, is meant to humble us all before God, who acts first in his awesome sovereignty, and then calls us to respond in thankful obedience. The proper way of thinking, rising out of the Old Testament, confirms this, confirms what I’ve been saying. Presence’s failure to obey the imperatives of God, furthers the hope that God would act definitively, and finally, in order that by way of his new act, there might be a new obedience in us, a new compliance, and even a new ability to obey. In all of this, there is an appropriate giving way to God. that God might be all in all, that sees in the balance an appropriate grasp of the fullness of God’s grace. God, in His grace, must act if I am to obey at all. The act of God must proceed.

But having set these things in order, having gotten hold of this biblical truth, or better, this truth having gotten hold of us, we still fall short of the full splendor and glory of the New Testament revelation. For it will not simply be that God acts in Christ before we are called to obey, the indicative will precede the imperative. But marvel of marvels, God himself will actually obey in Christ before we are called to obey. Now if you’re not undone by that, and virtually melted where you sit, there may be something desperately wrong with you, spiritually. I’ll repeat it. It is not simply that God acts in Christ before we are called to obey, God Himself will actually obey in Christ for us before we are called ourselves to obey.

It is all of Him. God’s action, therefore, so marvelous is it. His action, His indicative, includes within it our imperatives. All the commands that are laid upon us are already found in Him. Here is the fuller and more glorious meaning of Christ’s perfect obedience. He is God acting to fulfill God’s own law for us and in us. Before we can obey, God in Christ obeys for us. He accomplishes it. There is a fullness of the accomplishment. There’s nothing left out. You can only enter into it. You can only take advantage of it. It’s already done.

Indeed, now, even as we hear the imperatives, as those imperatives come to us, part and parcel of the imperatives is that we would enter into and be joined to Christ, who is our righteousness, who is our obedience. Your life is His life. For to live is Christ. Again, is it not true? Grace now is magnified before our eyes, as we are compelled to see and live in the full sufficiency of God in Christ, whose indicative action for us means his imperative obedience in us. and for us. Truly, our salvation and even our daily Christian living are all of Him.

You dare not depart from Him for a moment. You must abide in Him. But now this brings us in conclusion to the imperative-laden landscape of Ephesians and the command-dominated terrain of chapters four through six, specifically, in keeping with our interests presently, the imperatives of chapter five, twenty-two through six-nine. And it is here you are able to see the dazzling glory, at least here in an initial fashion, the dazzling glory of those things that I have been endeavoring to show to you this morning.

For example, consider the root of all obedience leading to and explicative of a blessed and godly marriage. I’m suggesting to you that not just with regard to the indicative imperative that your education is going to be turned head over heels, even as you consider things like marriage and child-rearing and employment your world is going to be turned head over heels. Consider the root of all obedience leading to a blessed and godly marriage.

Is not that obedience discovered in God in Christ, and in Christ’s own obedience as it applies specifically and respectively to both wives and husbands. And what shall we say about children and parents, next on the list? Will we not find, when we scrutinize these verses in Ephesians, that their obedience is an obedience that flows forth from God the Father’s obedience and that manifest in God the Son? And what shall we say about slaves and masters? God becomes the slave. God becomes the slave, he becomes the servant, even in Jesus Christ, that there might be obedience for us, respective of our positions in life as masters and servants.

We are busy now unearthing the foundations of genuine Christian living. These foundations will prove to be in themselves a discipline to you, compelling you once more, in keeping with the tone and directive of Scripture, to give up your life, that it might be found in Christ. that the very obedience of Christ might in the end be the sum and substance of all of your Christian living.

That gives you an idea of where we’re going. And I hope you’ll stay on board. to the end of the line. Our God, the full sufficiency that is revealed in Christ startles us. When we sit down to consider it, it is greater than we can take in. We know, O God, that it means the answer to our sin, and we are overwhelmed by that thought, by that reality and truth.

But, Father, it also means a full obedience found in Him and nowhere else. Even while we are confessing ourselves to be sinners, we are justified. Even while we are struggling with sin day by day, we are triumphant. We are not overcome because we are united to the One who in Himself is sufficient for all of our lives. For in Him there is not just satisfaction for our offenses, there is the fullness of life itself, a righteousness and a complete, faithful obedience.

May we therefore be delighted to abide in Him, even as we see the benefit of that at work in our marriages, in our homes, with our children, with our parents, in our work, in our relationships one to another. Always keeping in mind the greatness of your grace, our own unworthiness, and the marvels of all of that goodness, of all of that grace, of all of that peace, communicated to us.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

September 8, 1996