Blog Archives

Sealed - Ephesians 1:13-14

1/23/2017

Perhaps no two verses have been as comforting to me as a Christian as Ephesians 1:13-14:

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

This text is rich with words of incredibly significant meaning, and I want to explore a few of them with you today in the hope that they might provide you that same sense of assurance, identity, and comfort which they have provided me over the years.

Paul starts his letter to the church in Ephesus by thanking God for numerous spiritual blessings—being chosen before the creation of the world, adoption, grace, redemption, forgiveness, and so on. Paul seems almost unable to contain his excitement over what he is writing, such that verses 3-14 flow out of him in (at least in the original Greek) one long sentence. (There will be no grammatical study or sentence diagramming this week.) Given the breadth of these blessings, note how he starts verse 13: “You also were included.” This appears to be a statement to Gentiles, contrasting verse 12’s “we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ,” and thus a statement to the church today.

Two brief notes on the idea of inclusion. First, as Paul makes clear throughout his writings, we (Gentiles) don’t get spiritual leftovers or scraps. We are fully immersed. We get it all. There are no second-class citizens in the kingdom of God nor “redheaded stepchildren” in God’s family. Second, by the definition, if some are included, then some must be excluded. While it is not a popular message in this day and age, Scripture teaches that not everyone will be saved. So Paul moves on to underlining how one gets included: “When you heard the message of truth” and “when you believed.” This echoes his words in Romans 10: How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?[1] Biblically, there is a prerequisite to salvation—hearing the gospel and believing the gospel. As noted above, it’s not possible to believe in something you don’t know to believe in. Likewise, it’s worthless to hear a message if you don’t also believe the message.[2]

But look what happens when hearing and belief are combined. Verse 13 says, “When you believed.” Several translations, including previous iterations of the NIV, used the phrase “having [also] believed.” This is an important distinction because it recognizes that a transaction has taken place. It is not “When you believe” or “as you believe,” but “when you believed,” past tense. Jesus spoke to the subject when He said, “whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.”[3] Note the change (“death to life”) and the tense (“has crossed”). I want to be clear that saving faith is not a one-time thing with no effect or evidence thereafter. But I want to be equally clear that, much as a person is born physically at a point in time, they are also born spiritually at a point in time. Like a physical birth, a spiritual birth can happen quite suddenly or can take a long time and be difficult. But there is a starting point, even if the person born can’t necessarily identify when it was. (It’s okay—God can.) Jesus told Nicodemus that he must “born again,”[4] implying that no person starts off spiritually alive. Paul touches on this just a few verses ahead in Ephesians.[5] We are physically born spiritually dead. Therefore, if we are now spiritually alive, there has to have been a change in status. I’m belaboring the point, perhaps, but as we go forward I think you’ll see why.

Note what comes next, and again note the tense: When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal. Paul is again writing of something that happened in the past to Christians. It is not something that will/might happen or that is in the process of happening; rather, if they—if you have placed your faith in Christ, if you are “saved,” then “you were marked” with that seal. It is already done.

So what does that mean? What is that mark, that seal, and why is it so important? This is not the only place in Scripture that references the concept. A few chapters later, Paul writes, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”[6] And to the church in Corinth, he said, “Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come”[7] and “Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.”[8] Commenting on II Corinthians 1:22, Albert Barnes writes the following:

The word used here means to seal up; to close and make fast with a seal, or signet; as, e. g., books, letters, etc. that they may not be read. It is also used in the sense of setting a mark on anything, or a seal, to denote that it is genuine, authentic, confirmed, or approved, as when a deed, compact, or agreement is sealed. It is thus made sure; and is confirmed or established. . . . In a similar manner Christians are said to be sealed; . . . God grants to them His Holy Spirit as the certain pledge that they are His, and shall be approved and saved in the last day.[9]

Sealing has a double meaning. On one hand, it implies that something cannot be opened. In today’s vernacular, Paul might have written that “you were locked with state-of-the-art, unbreakable encryption.” In his language, he gave us Romans 8:38-39. But secondarily, a seal is also a means of authentication. Something that is sealed is owned; it belongs to the sealer and bears His mark. (See also John 6:27.) Paul asked, “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?”[10] Jesus stated that “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.”[11] The person who has believed in Christ has been authenticated as God’s and is locked and protected as God’s, and there is no power in the universe that can break the seal of God—except God, and we know from Scripture that He will not do so.[12]

Two more things from the Ephesians 1 passage. First, we see what specifically the seal is—the Holy Spirit. Remember what Jesus told His disciples shortly before His death? “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth.”[13] Post-Pentecost believers have the benefit of the indwelling Holy Spirit, functioning in many roles, not the least of which is as a deposit. Other versions use the terms pledge, earnest, down payment, and guarantee. Another word might be assurance.

As we read all these verses, another phrase keeps standing out: redemption. This speaks to the culmination, when the seal will be opened because it is no longer necessary. At “the end,” the “last day,” at the “day of redemption,” we who have believed will dwell eternally with God. We will have full payment, that for which we “groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for . . . the redemption of our bodies.”[14] Until that day, we are marked, protected, locked, sealed so that no one and nothing can undo what God has done.

To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.[15]

[1] Romans 10:14

[2] Hebrews 4:2

[3] John 5:24

[4] John 3:3

[5] Ephesians 2:1-3

[6] Ephesians 4:30

[7] II Corinthians 1:21-22, emphasis added

[8] II Corinthians 5:5

[9] Notes on the Bible by Albert Barnes, Public Domain

[10] Romans 8:33

[11] John 10:28-29

[12] John 6:39, I Corinthians 1:8, Philippians 1:6, II Timothy 2:19

[13] John 14:16-17 (See also John 15:26; 16:12-15)

[14] Romans 8:23

[15] Jude 24-25

1 Comment

The Word - John 1:1-2, 14

1/12/2017

0 Comments

Who is Jesus Christ? This is the crucial question of the ages, the question every person must answer. It is a question at the heart of the Gospel of John, a book I plan to visit frequently in this blog series. Therefore, I think it only appropriate to examine John’s “introduction” to his book:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. . . . The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-2, 14)

In the original Greek, “the Word” is translated as logos, a masculine noun meaning “a word, speech, divine utterance, analogy.”[1] It is from this Greek word that we get our word “logo” which is an image or symbol used to denote identity. As referenced above, one of the key themes of the Gospel of John is the identity of the Word, and as we break down these first two verses of the book, we’ll see John laying the groundwork for that theme.

Proper grammar has become something of a lost art and the study of grammar is often viewed as tedious, but we can gain much insight into Scripture if we take the time to look at the grammatical structure used. In John 1:1, we see three separate clauses—each containing a noun (the Word) and a verb (was). So let’s look at them in order:

1) The Word was in the beginning. This tells us that the Word precedes creation (see verse 3 and Colossians 1:15-17) and denies any claim that Jesus was merely a mortal being. Rather, the Word is eternal. In his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus reiterates this point when He says, “And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.”[2] Not only was Jesus in existence “in the beginning” but he was glorified with the Father. And that leads us to our second clause.

2) The Word was with God. This shows union, and throughout the book, Jesus repeatedly refers to this unity of purpose.[3] But let’s be clear, John is not just speaking of two like-minded entities. Rather, with God, purpose is derived from identity. Two people might come together and achieve unity because they have a similar goal or purpose. God the Father and God the Son have a unified purpose because of their intimate, perfect, eternal love relationship. So the Word not only precedes creation by being in existence first, but the Word also supersedes creation by having eternal, purposeful, intimate unity with God.

3) The Word was God. The third clause is different. The first two follow the same pattern—noun, verb, preposition, and object of preposition. In the last sentence, there is no preposition; we only have a noun (the Word), a verb (was), and a second noun (God). A prepositional phrase is a modifier—that is, something to describe an attribute (eternality, unity). But in this third clause, there is no modification. There is only identification. Put another way, the first two sentences give us details about the Word (when and where) but the third tells us who the Word is at its essence. As mentioned above, that identity is a huge theme of the book, so John starts out not with the birth of the incarnate Jesus, but with the eternal existence of the pre-incarnate Jesus.

Sadly, there are many people—some who categorize themselves as Christian—who would deny the deity of Christ. They claim He was merely human, or was imbued with a form of godliness for a period of time. In the first verse of his gospel, John makes it clear that such beliefs are nothing short of heresy. The Word existed at the beginning—or origin, per the Greek word archē—and the Word was God. Not a God, as some cults would claim. Not like a God. He was God. Other Bible authors use the phrases “exact representation of his being”[4] and “in very nature”[5] to describe this union.

Now, I’ve been interchanging “the Word” and “Jesus,” and because heresy and false teaching is like water seeping into cracks, finding any and every which way to pervert and delude, let’s briefly turn our attention to verse two. Lest anyone try to claim that the Word of verses 1 and 14 is a different entity than the Jesus in the rest of the book, note what pronoun John uses in verse 2. Not “It” but “He.” John restates the Word’s eternality and unity with God, but does so by referring to the Word with a masculine pronoun. And while this passage is the most well-known, it isn’t the only place John calls Jesus the Word. In I John, he pens something quite similar to what we’ve just read:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. (I John 1:1-3, emphasis added)

Notice what John tells his readers here. He talks about hearing, seeing, and touching the Word. Make no mistake, the Word John refers to in his biblical writings is not some inanimate object, not just an oral word or a conveyed message. This Word “has appeared to us.”

This leads us back to John 1, where we see “the Word” again in verse 14. Contrast what we’ve just looked at, an eternal being not only unified with God but also that is God, with “became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” If Christ’s identity is only human, as some claim, He is nothing. But if Christ’s identity is only divine, then we are nothing to Him. We are, as Jonathan Edwards put it, “sinners in the hands of an angry God” and that is the end of the story. But the glorious news of the Gospel—the core theme of Scripture to which John and all authors ultimately point—is that “the Word became flesh” to “give his life as a ransom for many.”[6]

Crucial to Christian living is an understanding of your identity in Christ, and in order to accurately understand who you are, you need to accurately understand who Christ is. John 1:1-2, 14 gives us the foundation for that understanding, and it is something we will continue to explore throughout this blog. In future posts, we will look at the “glory of the one and only Son” and how He is “full of grace and truth.” But for now, I want to focus on two reasons why understanding the identity of the Word is critical:

First, as mentioned above but worth underscoring, it helps us refute false teaching and heresy that would deny the deity of Christ, the eternal nature of Christ, or the unity within the Trinity. John 1:1 is by no means the only verse in Scripture to counter these claims, but it serves as a touchstone for doing so.

Second, understanding the identity of the Word—particularly His dual nature, divine and human—lays the foundation for the Gospel message. All of Scripture, ultimately, points back to Jesus Christ and to His coming to earth to die for sinful mankind. Therefore, we must be sure that we build all our biblical study and understanding on that foundation.

[1] Strong’s Concordance—emphasis added

[2] John 17:5

[3] Specifically, see John 5:19, 36; John 8:16-18; John 10:25-30; John 17:6-8

[4] Hebrews 1:3

[5] Philippians 2:6

[6] Matthew 20:28

0 Comments

Intro - Acts 17:10-12

1/5/2017

0 Comments

I am generally not a huge fan of “devotional” books and blogs. I’ve found too many of them to be fluffy and frilly, heavily based on personal experience, or over-commercialized. So it might seem odd that I have decided to write a “devotional” blog in 2017. But this one’s going to be a little different.

I fear that Christianity often becomes a pursuit of style at the expense of substance. I crave substance, and decided to write something that reflects that. I see myself as a meat and potatoes kind of guy—at the dinner table and in life, and especially when it comes to faith—so I decided to name the blog accordingly. As I thought about it a little more, I realized God has already provided the “meat” in His Word. So I’ve named the blog “. . . And Potatoes.” Is that a little dorky? Maybe. But I’ll dare to bet it’s the only so-named blog in the non-culinary world (or in the culinary world, for that matter).

So what does all this mean, when you step away from the metaphors? What is this blog about? Simple. Over the course of the next year, I plan to “think out loud” over some of my favorite and most influential passages of Scripture. I’m a pastor’s kid, and I tend to study Scripture from a preacher’s perspective, but it isn’t my intent to preach at you. Rather, I hope to “stimulate you [and me] to wholesome thinking.”(1)

I know some of you won’t be interested in reading what I have to say, and that’s fine. Others might skim a few posts now and then, and others might consume every word. Wherever you fit on the spectrum, I have a challenge for you—one that applies to checking out my blog, reading your favorite Christian author, or listening to a sermon on Sunday. And that challenge is lifted from the book of Acts, where we read the following:

As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men. (Acts 17:10-12)

We know little of Berea from Scripture, as it is only listed one other time outside this passage. Yet the people of Berea garnered notoriety that exists to this day based on their response to Paul’s preaching. And that is where I want to briefly focus. From this short passage we learn two things about the Bereans and two thiacts ngs about Paul’s message that I think can apply to each and every one of us as we go to church, study the Bible, or check out our favorite blogs.

First, regarding the Bereans, we see that they received the message with “great eagerness.” Several translations use the phrase “readiness of mind.” These weren’t reluctant listeners dragged along to the synagogue by their parents or just there to appear socially acceptable. They wanted to learn. How many of us—self included—are eager for a sermon on Sunday morning or excited about digging into the Word?

Second, and this is the key takeaway, the Bereans didn’t just take Paul at his word and go home. They scrutinized the Scriptures to verify that Paul was speaking the truth. And they didn’t just do it once or with one part of his message. Verse 11 notes they did so “every day.” In other words, their pattern was to listen to Paul preach and then consult the Scriptures for verification. A study of the New Testament shows that the early Church was plagued by heresies and false teachers. Christianity today is no different, with TV evangelists and lifestyle bloggers pushing all sorts of garbage that isn’t Scriptural. Before you rush off and take Joel Osteen or Jen Hatmaker’s words as Gospel, first compare them to the Gospel. And as this passage specifically relates to my blog, please do the same thing. I will strive to make sure everything I say is in accordance with God’s Word, but I’m not infallible. Just because you read it on a “Christian blog,” don’t assume it’s true. The Bible is the Christian’s ultimate plumb bob, his or her source of truth. Everyone else—me, that popular Christian author or speaker, your pastor on Sunday, or that “nudge” of the Holy Spirit—is only a source of truth insomuch as they are in agreement with the Bible. Be like the Bereans—examine the Scriptures to see if what others say is true.

I also want to touch briefly on two points regarding Paul’s message. Luke (the author of Acts) doesn’t tell us specifically what he preached to the Bereans, but we can assume it was similar to the message he had just preached in Thessalonica and which had stirred up trouble and caused the believers there to send Paul and Silas to Berea:

As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,” he said. (Acts 17:2-3)

This again tells us two things:

First, Scripture does contain the answers for verifying truth. Paul’s letters “contain some things that are hard to understand”(2) according to Peter, but his message can be boiled down to his statement above: “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah.” Note that he was speaking to Jews, in a Jewish synagogue, and they were able to confirm this message by studying the Scriptures—that is, at that time, the Old Testament. We too often view the Old and New Testaments as separate books, with separate messages, and even separate versions of God. They aren’t. They are one, consistent book, one theme. And the Messiah who was revealed in the New Testament was clearly (to the examining heart and mind) proclaimed in the Old Testament.

Second, due to the Bereans’ eager reception of Paul and careful study of his message, Scripture notes that “many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.” The gospel message, as Paul put it, “is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.”(3) We see that played out here in Acts. It wasn’t just the Berean Jews who believed, but many Greeks, including those of a prominent or honored position—that is, influential people. Compare that result with what happened in Thessalonica (Acts 17:5-9).

We learn a great lesson from the people of Berea. We ought to receive the gospel with eagerness, and examine and study the Scriptures to confirm the accuracy of our preachers and teachers and writers and bloggers. And if we do, Scripture indeed holds the answers, and those answers have power to transform lives.

I hope you’ll check back frequently. I plan to post “potatoes” on a weekly or semi-weekly basis. But whether or not you ever read my blog again or not, I urge you to follow the model of the Bereans and examine the Scriptures daily!

1) II Peter 3:1
2) II Peter 3:16
3) Romans 1:16

0 Comments

Sealed - Ephesians 1:13-14

The Word - John 1:1-2, 14

Intro - Acts 17:10-12

Author

Archives

Categories