Ephesians 1:3
3 Blessed [eulogetos] be the God [theos] and [kai] Father [pater] of our [hemon] Lord [kurios] Jesus [Iesous] Christ, [Christos] who [ho] hath blessed [eulogeo] us [hemas] with [en] all [pas] spiritual [pneumatikos] blessings [eulogia] in [en] heavenly [epouranios]
places in [en] Christ: [Christos] KJV-Interlinear
3
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, NASB
The world refers to God
as a stern, tyrannical, dark and forbidding person. That God somehow has His own selfish purpose
and that man is but a pawn, in a plan that does not seem to have a purpose or
even a destiny. That God and man are
somehow here in existence at the same time and that a conflict exists between
both, in which man must win or forever be enslaved by God.
And since the world is
really the domain of Satan, then that view is really a clear picture of life
between man and Satan, to the exclusion of God.
As far as God is
concerned, the above with reference to God could not be further from the truth.
God pre-existed all of
creation and life. It was God who designed the divine plan and within it
created all that is. It was God who
gives life and provides each one of us with the phenomenal opportunity to have
an existence for all of eternity.
Without life, we would experience
nothing. We would smell nothing, taste
nothing, hear nothing, see nothing, experience nothing. There is nothing, unless there is first life.
But with life, the very
nature of creation is evil, and that must be taken care of before eternity can
proceed, otherwise evil would perpetuate itself and ruin everything.
The angels had the entire
universe at their disposal, and yet they sinned and fell from grace, every one
of them. That set the stage for the
conviction and punishment of sin and evil.
Satan rebelled even at that opportunity to be reinstated, and therefore
man was brought into existence in order to resolve the justice of God and prove
Gods good purpose and policy.
Man was created and man
likewise fell from grace. No living
creature can live and exist sin free, on his own merit. Only God is able to accomplish that, and that
gave rise to a savior, who must be equal with both man and God, and that person
is Jesus Christ.
Christ came into the
world, lived a sin free life, fulfilling the law written by Moses, something
that no human being can do, proved His perfect nature and then paid the price
for all of humanities sins, and then defeated death by means of his
resurrection.
For the mere price of
believing in Christ, who He is, what He did, and so forth, we then can have
eternal life, and not be forever separated from God, in a lake of eternal horror.
Life without God is not
pleasant, but is pure horror. God is the
glue that holds all things together, get rid of that glue and your whole life
breaks apart into eternal chaos.
What person can do what
God does? What person can hold this
universe together? What person can maintain
the laws of physics and/or all the sciences including even the psychological
sciences, wherein sanity can be preserved?
And that answer should be obvious.
You cannot even control the loss of a single hair on your head, the beat
of your heart, the span of your life, the weather, or even the economy. In fact were it not for God, you could not
control the length of days or the seasons.
There is so much common
grace operating in this world, that when it comes right down to it all, there
is very little that man can or does control.
The only thing that we
can even begin to control is the nature of our own individual thoughts, and
even that is impossible unless you have truth to guide you.
Without truth,
indifferent man will run right off the cliff of history into total disaster for
himself.
So, God gives us the
gospel to allow us the opportunity to be saved, and more than that, salvation
opens up a whole new door and way of life, that provides us with the opportunity
to fulfill the completion of ourselves and advance us to a life that is far
beyond our imagination.
And so, Paul begins an
explanation that will continue until the twelfth verse, as to why God is due
and worthy of praise, and gratitude from us, because God has laid out a
foundation and plan that is so far beyond our comprehension that even with His
truth we will still be unable to understand it all. And yet without His truth, we will have
nothing.
God provides a plan and a
purpose and the doctrine to help us learn of it, and grow, and acquire it for
ourselves.
The plan begins with the
Father, toward whom we cannot approach except in arrogance. The plan continues through the Son, by whom
arrogance and sin and evil and death have been defeated, thus giving us access
to the Father, and through that process, access to all of the spiritual
blessings, and that means all the good that exists in heaven, for our very own
possession, both permanent and forever.
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