In the previous message, we saw in Ephesians 1 the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity and how it has produced the church. The Father’s choosing dispensed the Father’s nature into us so that we can become holy, and His predestination dispensed His life into us so that we can become His sons. Following this, the Son came to redeem us. In the Son’s redemption, through Christ’s element, God constitutes us His precious inheritance. Then God the Spirit seals us and becomes a pledge to us so that, on one hand, He saturates and permeates us, and on the other hand, He becomes our enjoyment as a foretaste of God becoming the blessing of our inheritance. Finally, the surpassingly great power that the Triune God operated in Christ is transmitted into us to produce the church.
In Ephesians 2 Paul continues by first showing us that the dispensing of God the Father in the life in God the Son has enlivened the believers (who were dead in sins) together with Christ, has raised them up together with Christ, and has seated them together with Christ in the heavenlies, thereby creating the believers as His masterpiece to be His church, that He might display in the ages to come the surpassing riches of the Triune God’s grace of life (Eph. 2:1-10).
First, Paul shows us, those who have become the church, what kind of persons we were and how God worked on us to make us His masterpiece. In verses 1 through 3 he shows us that we who have been created to be the Body of Christ through God’s dispensing were formerly not only sinners but dead ones, being dead in our offenses and sins. In the universe we were nothing. However, through God’s great mercy He came to us in His grace, which is the divine life of God in His Son. For God to come to us in His grace is for Him to come to us in the divine life of His Son. Through this divine life, God enlivened us, the dead ones, with Christ. Christ has died for our sins, and on the third day God raised Christ up. He used this enlivening life to do the work of His masterpiece so that we, the dead ones, could become alive.
After we were made alive, we were resurrected with Christ (v. 6). To be made alive is to wake up, and to resurrect is to stand up and be able to move around. Moreover, in resurrection God has raised us up and seated us in the heavenlies. No longer are we a group of people on earth, but we are a group of people in the heavenlies. In this way, we have entered into life from death and have been transferred from earth to heaven. In this position of resurrection and ascension, we are no longer living in sin; rather, we are walking in the good works that God has prepared for us to walk in (v. 10). In this way, God has worked on us in His grace to such an extent that we have become God’s masterpiece.
The word for masterpiece in Greek means something that has been made, a handiwork, or something that has been written or composed as a poem. Not only a poetic writing may be considered a poem, but also any work of art that expresses the maker’s wisdom and design. God has caused us who were useless ones, sinners dead in sins, to become in the universe something beautiful and expressive of God’s wisdom. Before the eyes of the angels, and even before the eyes of the enemy, we are a sweet, beautiful, and wise poem written by God. In other words, we who were useless and were dead in sin have become, through God’s grace of life, a song that is singable and enjoyable.
Formerly we were hopeless ones. But God has dispensed His life to us. When this life comes, grace comes as well. The coming of God’s grace was a living breath that was breathed into our dead heart, and we were enlivened within. We became alive together with Christ. We also stood up with Christ and became able to move and work. Not only so, God has lifted us to the heavenlies and has seated us in the heavenlies. While we are seated in the heavenlies, God and the angels consider us a beautiful poem. This shows us the extent to which God’s dispensing has worked on us.
In ourselves, we do not have the capacity to make ourselves alive, to stand up, and to ascend into the heavens. Our nature does not have the capacity to overcome the power of gravity. However, God’s breath of life, His grace of life, has been breathed into us. This grace of life contains a capacity that enables us to ascend until we arrive in the heavenlies, where God is. It has also seated us there so that God might display in the ages which are coming, that is, in the millennium and in the new heaven and new earth, the riches of His grace of life. There we will be as a musical hymn for all creation to sing of God’s sweetness, wisdom, and glory. Hymns, #203 is a very sweet hymn. As we sing such a hymn, we sense its sweetness and its beauty. I believe that one day, in the kingdom, all the angels will take the lead in the creation to sing such a song of praise to God concerning us as God’s poem, God’s masterpiece.
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