Ephesians 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Spiritual Blessings God bestows a variety of blessings on his children. Some are enjoyed by believers and unbelievers alike (Matthew 5:45); health and wealth are some of these benefits. In the first chapter of Ephesians, however, the apostle Paul does not concern himself with these temporal blessings. He speaks of blessings of infinitely greater worth, spiritual blessings. These blessings are only for those whom God has predestined to be his children. Paul begins by praising the source of these blessings, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ may be the pipeline through which these blessings come to us, but his Father is the spring from which they flow. Our text speaks of the mystical union that exists between the Father and the Son. Verse 3 speaks also of the generosity of our heavenly Father. He doesn’t just send us some of his blessings; “He blesses us ... with every spiritual blessing.” This means all of his blessings, his complete blessing. He doesn’t hold back on his children. He isn’t just generous; he is extravagant. We all know of parents who are extravagant. They are the kind of parents who end up with spoiled children. They think they can buy their children’s affection by giving them whatever they ask for, or they try to buy some peace by giving their whining offspring what they demand. This kind of generosity is foolish; it often accomplishes the opposite of what was intended. Paul tells us God lavishes his blessings upon his children (1:8), but his magnanimity is far from foolish. He gives “with all wisdom and understanding.” In his wisdom, God knows what to give his children. His understanding tells him what they need. He also knows how much they need and can handle at any given moment. His provision is bounteous and his timing is perfect. Could anyone wish for a better Father? How blessed we are that we are encouraged to call this God “our Father.” Earlier we spoke of the mystical union between the first and second person of the Trinity. This verse also speaks of an equally mystical union between the Father and all true believers, and this union has been forged by Christ. His atoning death on the cross has restored the relationship between the Father and mankind that was broken when Adam was led astray by the serpent. When the veil of Jesus body was rent, sinners regained direct access to the Father. It gave those who believe in his name “the right to become children of God” and “co-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:16, 17). All the riches he secured on the cross are theirs also. The same Jesus who secured their salvation also taught them to call his Father “our Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:9-13). What a loving Savior is ours! How can we ever thank him for his indescribable love? What a great God is our Father! How can we ever praise him enough for the riches of the heavenly blessings he lavishes upon us?  Read less

Ephesians 3:17 - 20 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, Fullness The book of Ephesians speaks of the fullness of God. He is full of every spiritual blessing in Christ with which he blesses us in the heavenly realms, rich in forgiving grace which he lavishes on us, and bursting with incomparably great power which is ours for the asking. In this passage Paul prays for the Ephesians. He asks that God out of his inexhaustible and glorious riches will fill them with the spiritual power that will enable them to grasp the dimensions of Christ’s love. When I consider the love of Christ, I think of the majestic mountains in our beautiful province of British Columbia. The closer I get to them the more massive they become, until they completely fill my field of vision and block my way. They seem without measure, but no matter how enormous they are, it is possible to drive around them. We can get a handle on their dimensions; we can measure their width and height and depth. Not so the love of Christ; it is immeasurable. Yet, Paul prays that his spiritual children may “know this love that surpasses all knowledge,” the love that is so great that it can never be fully known. Is that possible? We will never be able to comprehend intellectually the full extent of Christ’s love for us. Yet, we can know it experientially. That is, we can experience it on a different level. Older versions of Scripture express so beautifully that Adam knew Eve, and she conceived. This is knowing on a different level. This intimate kind of knowing can only take place when there is a deep love between Christ and his children. Paul tells us that according the power that is at work within us, God can give us immeasurably more than what Paul or we can ask or imagine. Go ahead. Try it. God is a God of fullness, and he loves to lavish his gifts on us.  Read less

Genesis 3:6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. 1 John 2:16 For everything in the world - the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does - comes not from the Father but from the world. Choices Knowledge is power. If I have knowledge of my neighbor’s illicit relationship with his secretary, I can exercise power over him. I can use this power to extort money from him or destroy him. Satan claimed that man, if he would shift his allegiance from the Creator to him, could have power of discernment equal to that of God. The serpent insinuated that God was being less than honest and holding back on Adam and Eve, that God was using a false threat of death to withhold from them the ability to discern between good and evil. The truth, of course, is that they, having been created by a wise and generous God, had already received from him both eternal life and the moral and ethical discernment Satan held out to them. Eve was led by her eyes rather than God’s injunction. She fell for Satan’s lie, and her eyes were opened to a painful truth. Satan often deals in half-truths. It is true that our first parents’ eyes were opened, but the knowledge they gained was one that led to death. They now knew experientially the difference between good and evil, the good that they once had but were no longer capable of doing, and the evil that they had committed and into which they had plunged all of mankind. The old serpent still effectively uses the tactics that he worked on Eve; he still appeals to our avaricious appetites. He has shed his old guise as a snake its skin. He now works through Madison Avenue and Tinseltown to make everything in the world appeal to “the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes”, to make what the world has to offer look “good”, “pleasing to the eye” and “desirable”. We, like our first parents, are constantly confronted by temptations, and we, like them, must make choices. What will we choose? Will we follow the world and its desires and pass away with them, or will we do the will of God and live forever with him?  Read less

Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. No Excuse Paul has explained the main points of the gospel: It is good news (1:2); it is about Jesus(1:3); and without the righteousness of God no one can be saved (1:17). Now he moves on to the next point: God is angry. Some may accuse God of being unfair. How can I know there is a God if I have never heard of him and have never seen a Bible? It is not fair to punish someone for his ignorance! Paul writes that anyone can know there is a higher being; all he has to do is look around. Look at the sun, the moon, the stars. Where do you think they have come from? Have you noticed how they are all in perfect balance with each other? They are at just the right distance from each other. If the earth were just a little closer to the sun, we would all be burned to a crisp. If it were a bit farther from the sun, we would all freeze to death. If the earth would circle around the sun any slower, we would be pulled into the sun and burn up; if we circled any faster, we would fly off into space. Could all this have come into being by itself or by accident? Look at the beauty of creation around you: the mountains and the valleys, the forests and the deserts. Look how wonderfully all creatures live together. Did all these things appear by chance? No, there must have been a very intelligent designer behind it all. Someone who carefully thought it all out and then created this wonderful universe. There must be a higher being! What Paul wrote 2000 years ago is still true today, perhaps even more so. Evolutionists deny God's existence and are ever on the attack against what he has revealed in Genesis 1 and 2. In his latest book, "The Grand Design", the British physicist Stephen Hawking writes: "Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist." Hawking cites the 1992 discovery of a planet orbiting a star outside our own Solar System as a turning point against Isaac Newton's belief that the Universe could not have arisen out of chaos. "That makes the coincidences of our planetary conditions -- the single Sun, the lucky combination of Earth-Sun distance and solar mass -- far less remarkable, and far less compelling as evidence that the Earth was carefully designed just to please us human beings," he wrote. Evolutionists claim not only that this earth and all of the universe came into being by spontaneus creation, it is also a cruel and indifferent place. Richard Dawkins, Darwin's pitbull, wrote: The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. -- Richard Dawkins, "God's Utility Function," published in Scientific American (November, 1995), p. 85 If there is "no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference," the question arises: Is there a purpose for living in such a universe? After painting such a bleak picture of the world in which God has placed us, Dawkins says there is: "After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with colour, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked -- as I am surprisingly often -- why I bother to get up in the mornings. To put it the other way round, isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be a part of it?" This begs the question: Why bother discovering anything about and rejoicing in a universe that is so indifferent, where "the state of starvation and misery" is considered natural. Dawkins and Hawking are prime examples of those who suppress the truths God has revealed about himself in the universe he has created. Paul says, “By looking at the wonders of creation we can learn at least two things about this higher being: He has great power, ‘eternal power’' and he must be divine, that is ‘God’.” How can we be sure this is true? Anyone can understand this being must be very powerful to create all things great and small. But why does Paul say ‘eternal power’, that is, power that has always been there? Nothing can come from nothing, except that which God has spoken into being. So where did this power come from? It has always been there; it is an eternal power. And how can we know that this higher being is divine, that is ‘God’? Only God is from eternity. Therefore, no one can have any excuse for saying that God does not exist. There are, of course, many things about God we can not learn from looking at creation. The world around us does not tell us anything about God’s grace, his love, his holiness and his mercy. It is the Bible that teaches us these things about God. However, anyone who says that God does not exist is lying to himself. He is suppressing the truth. God’s Word teaches: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” Psalm 19:1  Read less

Romans 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. God's Anger Paul has explained the main points of the gospel: It is good news (1:2); it is about Jesus(1:3); and without the righteousness of God no one can be saved (1:17). Now he moves on to the next point: God is angry. We may ask, “Why is God angry? And with whom is he angry?” Let us look first at the last question. God is angry with people, not all people, just with those who are godless and wicked, who live as if there is no God. Some make themselves believe that God does not exist. Others know there is a God, but they ignore him and his laws; they do their own thing even if this brings harm to them and others. They are unrighteous. And why do these people live in an ungodly and unrighteous way? Paul says that one of the main reasons is that they suppress the truth. What is this truth Paul has in mind? It is the Word of God. God’s Word is truth. But these ungodly and wicked people either ignore what God teaches them in his Word, or they say, “O, that is old-fashioned. Perhaps this was true long ago when the Bible was first written. But today we know better. Anything we like to do is truth; what we don’t like is no longer truth.” Who would know better what is good for us? God who made us, or we ourselves? The answer is, of course, “God knows best.” He is our Creator. Therefore he has the right to tell how we should live. So why is God angry? It is because the godless and wicked people ignore him and his Word. He says to them, “Look here. I have given you the gospel. In it I have told you how you can be righteous in my sight. And what do you do? You ignore the only way in which you can be saved!” That is sin, and God is so holy that he simply can not stand sin. It makes him angry. Therefore sin needs to be punished. Paul writes that God reveals his wrath from heaven. What does he mean? He means that God is not just thinking, “Just wait, you sinners. Someday I will get even with you for ignoring me and my Word. Someday, when you don’t expect it, I will come down and punish you!” No, God does not deal with sinners that way. He gives them fair warning. In his Word he does not only tell how we can be saved, but also what will await us when we ignore his gracious warnings. Paul writes: “For the wages of sin is death" for those who ignore God and his Word, "but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" for those who believe the gospel (6:23).  Read less

Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the LORD himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. Luke 1:31 The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Born of a Virgin God sent Gabriel to announce the most miraculous and momentous event that has ever taken place, the birth of Jesus, Son of God and Son of man. In this age of genetic engineering and cloning, the doctrine of the virgin birth finds little credence. In the presence of their sophisticated friends, some Christians feel defensive about this teaching; they wonder if God could not have thought of a less embarrassing way of ushering the Savior into the world. What necessitated Jesus to have a virgin mother and a divine Father was God’s justice. It demanded payment from the guilty party, man. Sacrifices and offerings God did not desire; they only prefigured him who said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” Angels had stood firm in the face of temptation; they could not be punished for man who, in a similar situation, had failed and fallen into sin. And man, with Adam’s guilt clinging to him like a filthy garment, daily adds to his sin. The One who could satisfy the demand of God’s justice and withstand the blast of divine wrath had to be perfect man and true God. There was only one who qualified: Jesus, Son of the Most High, born of a virgin. When Adam cast all of mankind into misery because of his disobedience, he passed on his guilt to all his descendants. All men share in the same sin since all share in the same father. All, except One, Jesus. He put on our flesh and became man, but he was “born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God” (John 1:13.) Therefore he is free from the guilt that stains all mankind and is able to pay the terrible price for sin. Carnal man smiles condescendingly at the story of the virgin birth. He does not know that “the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom,” and he perishes in his pride. Not so those who, like Mary, take God at his word. To them, he who was born of a virgin became “wisdom from God”, that is, their “righteousness, holiness and redemption.” There is nothing foolish or ridiculous about that!  Read less

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." Ephesians 4:24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Colossians 3:10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. The Heidelberg Catechism: Q & A 6 Q. Did God create man so wicked and perverse? A. No. God created man good and in his own image, that is, in true righteousness and holiness, so that he might know God his Creator, love him with all his heart, and live with him in eternal happiness for his praise and glory. PUTTING ON THE NEW SELF In the first chapter of Genesis we read that man was created in the image of God, but it isn’t until we come to the letters of Paul that we find out what this means. Those who hold that man is the climax of a chain of primeval accidents, that his progenitors crawled out of primordial slime and clawed their way to the summit of the evolutionary heap, believe that what sets him apart from other animals is his ability to use language and tools. This is not what Scripture says man is. Psalm 8 tells us that God has made man “a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.” The image of God can be thought of in a broad and a narrow sense. In the comprehensive sense, it makes him a spiritual being who, like his Creator, possesses reason, morality and immortality. Man’s fall from his exalted state distorted but did not destroy this image. The creature’s arrogant reason makes him grasp for powers that rightly belong to his Creator; his morality has taken on pliable and relative qualities; his shallow sense of immortality is expressed in the monuments he builds in his own honor. The image of God in the restricted sense was wiped out in the Fall. It was what God intended man to be: his glory, the glory of which all sinners fall short. We learn what this glory was from the Ephesian and Colossian passages which speak of its restoration: true knowledge, holiness and righteousness. Before the Fall man had a true and intimate knowledge of the nature and character of his Creator, his own creatureliness and his position before God; he possessed true holiness that set him apart for a life of service to God and man; true righteousness was his by virtue of being created without sin. When Paul tells his readers to put on the new self, he does not imply that man by an act of his own free will can restore to himself the image of God. The moment a sinner is born again, this image is recreated in him. But now that this new self is his, man is urged to put it on experientially, that is, he is commanded to live a holy life. The verses that follow the passages quoted above clearly explain what God’s chosen people must first put off and then clothe themselves with; they tell what those who are sanctified in Christ must do to be holy.  Read less