Ephesians 1: 1-14
"Every Spiritual Blessing"

INTRODUCTION:  Who wants to be blessed this morning?  Not sure?  OK, who wants to be cursed?  Well, a blessing is the opposite of a curse.  A curse declares or wishes something bad for the recipient, and a blessing is a declaration or a wish of something good.  We can curse people by expressing the polite request that God consign them to eternal punishment; we can bless them by a compliment, a word of encouragement, simply by wishing them well, or perhaps best of all by reminding them of God’s promises or praying for them. 

Now, the power of the blessing or the curse to do real good or harm would depend on who was making it.  “Sticks and stones may break my bones / But words will never hurt me” can be perfectly true if the words come from a stranger.  When they come from someone who matters to us it’s a different story.  What about a judge who has the authority and the power to make good on his words? “I condemn you to be hung by the neck until dead.”  “I find for the defendant.”  The greater the power and authority of the speaker, the more potent will be the blessing or the curse.  Therefore, the greatest disaster that could befall any human being would be to be cursed by God, for His Word defines and indeed generates all of reality.  To be cursed by God would bring a failure of meaning and fulfillment to a life that would amount to nothing less than the destruction of its very humanity.  So by contrast, the very best thing that could happen to any person would be to be blessed by God.  That would bring a success and fruition of meaning in that life that would amount to eternal happiness and bliss.  The one eventuality would be the very definition of hell; the other, of heaven. 

And so we need to pay special attention to verse 3 because in it lies the possibility of that kind of blessing for us.  “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.” This verse is the spring from which flows a passage known as “The Great Blessing,” a single sentence in Greek that flows through verse 14 and is fleshed out in a summary of all that God has done for our salvation—that is, all He has done to bring about the blessing declared in verse 3, on which we focus today:  “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.”  The language in which this astounding statement is couched reveals to us four things:  the Establishment of the Blessing (by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ), the Extent of the Blessing (it is every spiritual blessing), the Environment of the Blessing (it is in the heavenly places), and the Essence of the Blessing (it is in Christ).  Let us then give our careful attention to these words, for they are the very foundation and source of everything that makes life worth living—indeed, worth living forever.   

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE BLESSING – “who has blessed us . . .”
 
Blessing in Scripture is not something we strive for but something God does.  It is He who has blessed us, not we ourselves.  It is stated here as a simple fact, demanding a response of blessing from us. And what is it exactly that God has done by blessing us?  The word translated “bless” here is not the familiar word from the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” etc.  That is makarios, the basic meaning of which is “profoundly happy.”  Here the word is eulogeo, which literally means “good saying.”  It is the word from which we derive the English eulogy, good words (we hope) said about the deceased at a funeral.  (Some eulogies are more of a challenge than others.)  In Ephesians 1: 3 then it refers not to an emotional state but to the pronouncement of goodness, the declaration of God’s intention to bring goodness into our lives. 

Here the act of blessing is given not in the future tense but in the past—it conveys not just the declaration of God’s intentions for His people but the fact that He has already acted to bring these intentions to pass.  The aorist tense refers to a definite, specific, once-for-all action at a particular point of time in the past; it is usually used for something accomplished and completed.  Well, when was that time?  When was this blessing established?  Was it at the incarnation of our Lord?  His crucifixion?  His resurrection?  Our conversion?  No, it is something even more fundamental than any of those crucial moments.  Look how Paul continues in verse 4:  “. . . just as He chose us in Him, before the foundations of the world.”  This blessing is coordinated (“just as”) with Election.  It happened before the universe was even created.  Before He even made a world in which it could happen, God made a determination that he would bring blessing to His children.  Indeed, creation itself, yea, the entire history of the universe, was planned in order to bring this blessing to pass.  The world was created so that this blessing might be!

Do you understand what Paul is saying?  Before the foundations of the world, God made a choice.  If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you may believe that it was a choice about you.  Looking at you with the eyes of His foreknowledge, God saw a sinner who did not love Him, who could not love Him or obey Him or believe in Him or in any other way respond to Him, because He saw you dead in your trespasses and sins.  Not because of anything He foresaw in you—not even that you would come to believe, for how could a dead person do that unless God had already done something miraculous to him?—but only because of His own grace, because of who He is—God decided to bless you anyway.  Simply out of His incomprehensible grace He just up and decided to bless you.  He made a pronouncement to that effect, choosing you for the greatest conceivable blessing there could be, adoption as His son or daughter.  And because, dead in sin as you were, you were not only utterly ineligible to receive this blessing but utterly unable to receive or even appreciate it, He therefore also determined that He would send His Son to redeem you and His Spirit to call you and regenerate you and give you the faith to accept all of this and to seal you in it.  We have noted that the verse we are studying today is the fountainhead of a section of Ephesians called “The Great Blessing,” which extends from verse 3 through verse 14.  It is all one sentence in Greek, and I would urge you to read it as such over and over again, until you see that everything it says is included in verse three and flows from it with an elegant and beautiful inevitability.  God made up His mind to do this thing before the foundations of the earth, and from that moment it was as good as done.  Your whole life in this world and all of eternity in the next consists of finding out what this means in its fullness.  We are just making a small start on that project today.

Hear then the aorist force of this phrase:  God has blessed us!  It is something He has done, through His all-powerful and destiny-creating Decree.  It was determined, set as His intention and His plan, before the foundations of the world were laid.  It is all of grace, His unmerited favor.  It is His work, and His alone.  He has done everything; you can do nothing except receive it. 

Now the only thing that matters is whether or not you can find yourself in this verse.  And there is only one way to find yourself in this verse, and that is by the words of the hymn, “Nothing in my hands I bring; / Simply to thy cross I cling.”  There is nothing you can do except to receive it, but receiving this blessing means you can then do all things through Christ who strengthens you.  Why would God do such a thing?  Why would He do this great thing?  There is nothing we can say in response to this except what Paul said:   “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.”  This is the establishment of the blessing. 

THE EXTENT OF THE BLESSING – “. . . with every spiritual blessing”
 
There are two things to be said about the extent of this blessing.  First, it is a spiritual blessing.  What does that mean?  The key to understanding that is II Corinthians 4: 18.  “The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are unseen are eternal.”  The word spiritual here refers to the unseen.  The unbeliever lives primarily for what he can see, hear, taste, touch, or feel.  If he can’t eat it, drink it, wear it, drive it, play with it, go to bed with it, or make interest on it, he doesn’t know what to do with it.  His whole focus is on the seen, that is, the material.  That is what we mean when we say that his mindset is secular.  What gives meaning to all or any of these things is obviously not something that you can see; but that does not mean it is unreal.  When you become a Christian, then, a whole new dimension of reality is opened up to you.  You become an enigma to the non-Christian, because now, while you receive material blessings with thanks, your focus is on something else, something he may not even believe exists and in any case does not understand.  That is what we mean by the word “spiritual.”

How is it that we have come to have a version of “Christianity” today that makes the same mistake as the secular mind and finds God’s blessing in material “health and wealth”?  You know what I’m talking about:  the Word-Faith “Name it and claim it” (or, more accurately, “Blab it and grab it”) mentality.  Well, God may very well bless us materially, and we are grateful for it when He does, though there is no such blanket promise of material prosperity in Scripture as this heretical teaching implies. But the emphasis here, the emphasis of the Gospel, is on spiritual blessings: forgiveness, acceptance, love, joy, peace, purpose, meaning, fulfillment.  None of these things can be put in a test tube or a calculator; they are spiritual, not material blessings.  But as such, these are not things that are going to pass away, but things that, because we find them in God, are eternal.

The second thing to notice is that this declaration by God includes “every spiritual blessing.”  “Every” is a pretty all-encompassing word.  Whatever is essential to your eternal spiritual happiness, fulfillment, and wellbeing is included.  Nothing you need to be eternally alive, joyful, loved, and content is omitted.  Included are such great spiritual blessings as justification, regeneration, adoption, sanctification, reconciliation, purpose, power, assurance, the fruit of the Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, and ultimately glorification. 

One lesson we should take from all of this provision is the sufficiency of God’s grace.  Nothing you need to serve God faithfully now or enjoy Him fully forever has been left out.  All of it has been provided in Jesus Christ!  This should make us leery of those who divide the work of Grace into two definitive stages or two experiences.  If you have truly received Christ, you have received everything.  Of course you need to learn more about it, to experience it more fully, to grow into it—it takes some growing into!  But there is nothing “extra” you need.  You just need more of Christ.  In Him is every spiritual blessing.  “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.”  This is the extent of the blessing. 

THE ENVIRONMENT OF THE BLESSING – “ . . . in the heavenly places”
 
While we begin to experience the blessing now, we will not know it in its fullness in this life, but only in the next.  That is what it means to say that the blessing is “in the heavenly places.”  Peter uses similar language:  “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you” (I Peter 1: 3-4).  And Paul will also elaborate in chapter two:  God has “raised us up [with Christ] and seated us with Him in the heavenly places” (2: 6).  There is a twofold emphasis here.  First, the full experience of knowing Christ awaits us in the next life; it is not going to be perfect or complete in this one.  But second, if we do know Him, we are already as good as there, already seated with Him in heaven in the mind of God and therefore, in a sense, in reality.  That is why we already begin to enjoy the firstfruits of the blessing here and now.  There is a present reality, and it is the basis of our hope for a greater reality in the future.  It is kept for us already in the heavenly places.  And therefore, even while we live on this earth, we should in the right sense be heavenly minded people.  We are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Please understand:  this is not “pie in the sky by and by,” as our hope has often been derided by people who do not understand it. It is not pie in the sky by and by: It is pie in the sky right now!  It is a future promise that is relevant to the way we live our lives at this moment.  It is relevant in at least two ways.  First, being the recipients of this blessing gives us an identity, a purpose, and a relationship with God that inform and direct everything about the way we live in the present.  (The whole second half of Ephesians is about laying out the details of that way, as we learn to “walk worthily of our calling.”)  And second, we already begin in foretastes partially to enjoy the blessing here and now. 

Pie in the sky?  I have painfully good memories of my Mom’s apple pie.  My mouth is watering right now, not in anticipation of a piece, which is not forthcoming, but just thinking about those past moments when I was in anticipation.  She would open the oven to check on something else, and the smell of that pie would fill the house.  Talk about a heavenly aroma!  So when Paul says that God’s blessing is in the heavenly places reserved for us, do you know what he is saying?  THE PIE IS ALREADY IN THE OVEN!  When you read your Bible, when you hear it faithfully expounded, when you join your voices with the congregation in singing His praises, when you receive the Lord’s Supper, do you know what is happening?  Do you understand why these practices are so central to the Christian life that we have a whole doctrine for them, the doctrine of “the means of grace”?  It is because when you practice and receive these things in faith, God is letting you peek in the oven!  Look at the juices bubbling up through the crust!  Watch that crust turning golden brown!  God is giving you a whiff of the aroma!  God is giving you a whiff of that pie.  Doesn’t it make your mouth water?  (That is why we call it a “foretaste,” by the way.)  Oh, get your focus off of the things of this world, the worries and the cares of this life, and smell the pie!  Yes, of course we have to deal with those things, and sometimes they are very grievous; but we do it as people who can already smell the pie that is baking for the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.  That is what enables us to deal with gut-wrenching pain, life-threatening crises, and the wear and tear of the oppressive mundane daily grind, not with denial but with joy, as people whose lives are not defined by these things but as people of hope.  “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.”  That is the environment of the blessing. 

THE ESSENCE OF THE BLESSING – “in Christ”
 
What a rich sentence this is that we have been reading this morning!  And the Apostle has saved the best part of it for last.  The very essence of every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places is that it is in Christ.  In Christ: it is perhaps the deepest, richest, most profound phrase in Scripture, and it is the key not only to this sentence but to the whole book of Ephesians.  What does it mean?

We have no time to survey all the usages of this phrase today, but surely here it means at least this:  There is only one Chef who can make and serve the kind of pie we’ve been discussing.  He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but by Him.  Here it means at least that; but it is more than that.  For Christ Himself is not just the Dispenser or Provider of the Blessing (though He is that).  He is much more:  He is the very essence of the blessing.  It is all bound up in Him.  There isn’t anything better that God can give you.  Christ is the blessing: its height and its depth, its final summation, its be all and end all, its alpha and omega, its beginning and its end.  In Christ we have everything that makes life good and worth living, yea, even for an eternity; apart from Him we have nothing.

What is there in salvation that constitutes God’s blessing, His declaration of good for us?  There is Justification, the forgiveness of our sins: it is in Christ; it is nowhere else to be found.  It is His blood that purchased it, that paid the penalty for our sins; it is His righteousness imputed to our account, His and no other’s.  We receive Justification because of our union with Him; quite literally it is in Christ; it is nowhere else to be found.  And the same is true of every other aspect of salvation, every other good and perfect gift, every other benefit that comes to us as Christ’s people.  What of the meaning of life and the purpose of existence?  It is in Christ; it is nowhere else to be found.  What of peace with God, peace with ourselves, and peace with our fellow men?  It is in Christ; it is nowhere else to be found.  What of love, joy, power, confidence?  They are in Christ; they are nowhere else to be found.  What of eternal and abundant life?  It is in Christ; it is nowhere else to be found. 

The whole spiritual pie!  It is in Christ; it is nowhere else to be found.  As Paul says in verse 10, all that the Father has done, election, predestination, calling, redemption, revelation, adoption, sealing—it is all done “with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in heaven and things upon the earth.”  Francis Foulkes put it well:  “As the root in the soil, the branch in the vine, the fish in the sea, the bird in the air; so the place of the Christian’s life is in Christ.”  It is nowhere else to be found.  “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.” That is the essence of the blessing. 

CONCLUSION:  “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.”  We have considered the Establishment of this blessing, by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world.  We have considered the Extent of the blessing, that it is every spiritual blessing, God’s declaration of ultimate spiritual good for us.  We have considered the Environment of the blessing, in the heavenly places.  And we have considered the Essence of the blessing, that it is in Christ, that it is Christ—Christ in us the hope of glory.  In the process we have turned the derisive phrase “pie in the sky by and by” on its head and seen that the blessing is pie in the sky right now; we have seen how, in the right sense, we as the bearers of this blessing should be heavenly minded people.  If in this sense we become heavenly minded enough, we might finally be some earthly good!  For we would then be able to face the trials of this life, not as distractions, or as snares, or as slippery surfaces tipping us toward the swamps of despair, but as opportunities to serve God and exercise our faith and live as people of hope.   

Well, then?  Is there a slice of this pie reserved in heaven for you?  Oh, unsaved friend, invite Christ into your life as Savior today: confess Him as Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, and all these things will be true of you.  Is there a slice of this pie reserved in heaven for you?  Oh, Christian brother and sister, get your heads up out of the things of the world and smell the pie!  Then you will not only understand what Paul is saying, but you will join with him in saying, “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.”  Amen.