Ephesians. Lynn H. Cohick
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ecclesiology or eschatology; God is the center, the beginning and the end. The tremendous idea—Paul trips over his words to make sense of it—is that the majestic God has determined in our time to make known his salvation plan in Christ. Through the Spirit, he set in motion the salvation plan for a new creation and the full realization of the kingdom of God. If we start with Ephesians in our quest to understand the gospel as Paul outlines it (instead of starting with Romans, for example, although the two letters share quite a bit in common), we might register aspects of Paul’s message that have been muffled or ignored. For example, Ephesians stresses God’s grace in the forgiveness of sins for the purpose of building a new community, a holy temple dedicated to God’s glory. God acted in Christ through the Spirit to make a new creation, which includes personal forgiveness of sins so that a people (Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female) might be made into a new household of God for his glory.
Though difficult to reduce such a complex argument as we find in Ephesians into a single sentence, a possible statement might be that through Christ, God the Father has redeemed humanity from sin and has created a new people empowered by the Spirit. The following outline highlights Paul’s major thought units:
I. Introduction
A. 1:1–2: Paul’s Greetings
II. Redemption in Christ makes the Two One
A. 1:3–14: God’s Work of Salvation
B. 1:15–23: Christ’s Rule over All Things
C. 2:1–10: Saved by Grace Alone
D. 2:11–22: Christ Our Peace Builds His Church
III. Mystery of Salvation Seen in Paul’s Imprisonment
A. 3:1–13: God’s Salvation Plan Revealed
B. 3:14–21: Paul’s Prayer for Believers’ Wisdom and Fullness
IV. Exhortation to Walk Worthy of Our Calling
A. 4:1–16: One Spirit, One Lord, One God and Father, One Body
B. 4:17–24: Put on the New Person
C. 4:25–32: Speak Truth in Love
D. 5:1–14: Imitate God, Walk in Love
E. 5:15–21: Be Filled with the Spirit
F. 5:22—6:9: Spirit-Filled Relationships in Christ
G. 6:10–20: Put on the Armor of God
V. Closing Remarks
A. 6:21–24: Paul’s Final Words of Grace and Peace
Modern Interpretive Questions
Since the 1960s, a most heated discussion has enveloped the interpretation of Paul. Two camps emerged, known, with a singular lack of creativity, as the old perspective and the new perspective. The “old” way of reading Paul is to stress his emphasis on forgiveness of sins and justification of the individual sinner through Christ’s work on the cross and his resurrection. The new perspective challenges that Paul was quite interested in the relationship between Jews and Gentiles and how the work of Christ affects each community as well as the newly forming church. In Ephesians, we have both of these convictions represented as two sides of the same coin. The redemptive work of Christ takes material shape in creating a new people of God made up of Jews and Gentiles. The new community is not a serendipitous result of Christ’s resurrection; rather it is the tangible, everyday proof of God’s surpassing power to make all things new. The empty tomb evidences Christ’s resurrection, and his appearance to his disciples and apostles (including Paul, 1 Cor 9:1–2; 15:8) was a testimony many clung to even in the face of martyrdom. But the ramifications of the resurrection are not limited to the salvation of the human soul, or even to restoring the kingdom to Israel as the disciples wondered aloud to Jesus (Acts 1:6). God’s plans are much bigger. They include the whole creation, and the evidence of Jew and Gentile together as equal participants in community is the daily confirmation Paul points to that God is indeed at work in Christ. The Letter to the Ephesians is a six-chapter exposition on the mystery of God’s wisdom revealed in this salvation plan.
Ironically, those who reject Pauline authorship of the letter (see a full discussion below) often point to the focused attention the church receives in Ephesians for support of their contentions. But the emphasis on church is a natural and essential aspect of Christ’s work on the cross, and so the extensive discussion in Ephesians about the church should not give rise to suspicions that the letter is deutero-Pauline, that is, attributed to Paul but not written under Paul’s direct influence. Indeed the church is a necessary part of God’s redemptive plan, which is to make all creation new. The church, as the body of Christ (who is its head), is an instrument through which God works to restore his creation, until the final event when God will establish the new heavens and new earth, when Christ hands over the kingdom to the Father (1 Cor 15:28). The church as the body of Christ represents (imperfectly) Christ to the world, and as such it is not a pleasant, though secondary, consequence of God’s work of redemption. Instead the church signals, by the empowering Spirit, the gospel to the unbelieving and seeking world. Said another way, the church is best understood, not as a collection of saved individuals or a group pledging particular doctrines (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant), but as a living organism. By walking in the good works prepared for it by God (Eph 2:10), the church led by Christ, the head, witnesses to God’s power and love. Ephesians pushes us toward a healthy vision of the church and away from a purely individualistic understanding of salvation.
Authorship of Ephesians
Pauline authorship of Ephesians is contested, with several reasons put forward to suggest Paul did not write the epistle. For some, the language, its terms and grammar, sound too different from the undisputed letters (Romans, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, Philemon) to be written by the same hand. For others, the theology, especially ecclesiology and soteriology, are sufficiently distinct to warrant pause in proclaiming Pauline authorship. Again, the apparent acceptance of Greco-Roman social status quo—the hierarchy of father, wife, children, slaves—speaks against this letter being written by the same author who penned 1 Corinthians. These concerns should not be dismissed lightly; however, they are capable of interpretation in a way that holds to Pauline authorship. Moreover, postulating a deutero-Pauline status for Ephesians does not solve all problems; indeed, it can create new ones, such as demonstrating the relative acceptance of pseudonymous5 authorship and pseudepigraphic6 work in the ancient world, their acceptance within the early church, and the reason for detailed personal information in Ephesians. In the end, I suggest the balance of the evidence weighs on the side of Pauline authorship, but I invite the readers to examine the evidence below to satisfy themselves on the matter.
Ancient Letter-Writing Practices
The letter itself claims to be from Paul, who states his name and then describes himself as an apostle of Christ Jesus (1:1) and later as a prisoner of Christ Jesus (3:1, see also 4:1, 6:20). Most of the undisputed letters begin with Paul declaring himself an apostle of Christ Jesus, although the formula is not rigidly followed, for in 1 Cor 1:1 he declares he was called as an apostle, while to the Romans he announces himself a slave of Christ Jesus who was called to be an apostle. The opening description of Paul in Ephesians, then, does not present any immediate hint of irregularity concerning authorship. Nor does the statement that Paul was a prisoner suggest pseudonymity. Paul notes in 2 Cor 11:23 that he has been imprisoned numerous times. He speaks of himself as a prisoner in Phlm 1, 9, and as being in chains in Col 4:3, 18. Acts 16:23–26 indicates that Paul was put in stocks, chained in an inner part of the prison in Philippi. The evidence raises at least two questions: Would someone writing in Paul’s name have included his claims of imprisonment? And were these chains seen in a positive or negative light? Looking at the first question, did Paul’s numerous imprisonments become a leitmotif of Paul’s life such that any person writing decades after Paul would need to include reference to his chains? This answer is related to our second question, which might be answered in one of two ways, based on how we understand Paul’s chains to be understood within the early church. In the larger society, being in chains was shameful; Paul likewise recognized that his chains could be understood in this way.7 But he also celebrates them as a symbol of his