< Ephesians 1 >

The apostle wrote this letter to the disciples in the city of Ephesus, calling them "saints", emphasising the high calling they had received to become part of the purpose of God. God is “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” and he has exalted the disciples into the “heavens in Christ”. In other words, by association with Jesus they are prospectively exalted with him.

God knows everything that is to happen in the future and often speaks of it as though it has already occurred. For example, he chose the disciples of Christ before the foundation of the world (“age”, in the original Greek). This does not mean that the disciples existed before the foundation of the Mosaic age but that God knew them then through his foreknowledge. They were part of his predestinated purpose and therefore he made them “accepted in the beloved” Jesus and made known unto them the secret (mystery) of his will, according to his good pleasure which he has purposed in himself. In due course he will gather all his saints together to receive with Christ the promised inheritance.

These early disciples received the power of the Holy Spirit enabling them to do miraculous deeds. This Holy Spirit is promised to all the saints and they will receive it when Christ returns. However the gift of the Spirit in those early days was “the earnest [guarantee / deposit] of the saints’ inheritance”. What they could do then by the Holy Spirit on a small scale, e.g. heal the sick, will be done on a far greater scale when the Spirit endowed saints rule the world with Christ.

The prayer of Paul for the disciples was that they might be filled with the wisdom and knowledge of God and, in particular, they might be enlightened to “know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints”. He speaks here of the exaltation of Christ and then immediately, in the next chapter, of the disciples’ position. Of Christ he says: “God raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church”.