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Ephesians 1:7–10, 22–23
“His purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, [is] to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. . . . And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (vv. 9–10, 22–23).
What is God’s goal in redemption? Certainly, we can say that His ultimate goal in salvation is to reveal His glory to creation (Hab. 2:14; John 17:24; Rev. 21:23). He has other subordinate goals, however, that serve this final aim. Perhaps most familiar to us is His goal to release us from bondage to sin, forgive our transgressions, and save us from His righteous wrath (Isa. 1:18; Matt. 1:21; 1 Thess. 1:9–10).
Today’s passage gives us another subordinate objective of the Lord in our salvation—namely, the reunification of creation in and through Christ and His body, the church. To put it another way, God’s goal in redemption is the establishment of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, with our Savior as its Head. John Calvin comments on Ephesians 1:7–10, 22–23: “Out of Christ, what can we perceive in the world but mere ruins? We are alienated from God by sin, and how can we but present a broken and shattered aspect? The proper condition of creatures is to keep close to God. Such a gathering together . . . as might bring us back to regular order, the apostle tells us, has been made in Christ. Formed into one body, we are united to God, and closely connected with each other. Without Christ, on the other hand, the whole world is a shapeless chaos and frightful confusion. We are brought into actual unity by Christ alone.”
Sin entered creation when Adam fell, setting people against one another, against God, and even against the holy angels in heaven (Gen. 3:8–12, 24). This disharmony has yielded the poisonous fruit of murder, cruelty, treachery, racism, hatred, and much more besides. Only our Creator could bring creation into harmony once again, and He has chosen to do this in and through the Lord Jesus and His church. Consider Ephesians 2:11–22, for instance. Paul makes clear that Christ is the Father’s agent of our peace with God but also of peace between Jew and gentile. Through faith in Jesus, such ethnic and religious divisions are healed and believers from every tribe and tongue are made one in Him.
All this is to say that the church is not an afterthought in God’s plan or an add-on to the gospel. Instead, it is a necessary corollary and fruit of the gospel. Our Creator saves us as individuals but not unto individualism. He brings us together in His body the church, and that has been His plan from the start, that “through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known” (3:7–10).
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Calvin also comments that “men had been lost, and angels were not beyond the reach of danger. By gathering both into his own body, Christ hath united them to God the Father, and established actual harmony between heaven and earth.” Human beings look everywhere for harmony between themselves and with all creation, but the only place that this can be found is in the church of Christ, which is one of God’s goals in salvation.
For further study
- Isaiah 19:16–25
- Zechariah 2
- Matthew 16:13–20
- Ephesians 3:1–13
The bible in a year
- Jeremiah 36–37
- Hebrews 1