Ephesians 1:22,23: Our Sovereign Savior

Ephesians 1:22, 23: "And He put all things in subjection 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."

We in America bristle at the thought of absolute authority. Our history is built on a united opposition to the rule of a monarch, and if you want to stir up a real argument just suggest that certain "rights" ought to be restricted. We are a nations of individuals who believe we are entitled not only to personal freedom, but also to our own personal definition of that freedom. This is why we American Christ-followers find it so hard to believe and trust in the concept of Christ's absolute sovereignty over His church.

The concept of sovereignty - that Christ has both the right and power to do whatever pleases Him - falls on our ears in a harsh way. But such would not have been the case in first century Ephesus. For Paul's readers, the question was not about the rightness of living under sovereign rule; the question was all about finding the best sovereign ruler. And for those who have been chosen in Christ, redeemed through His death, and are sealed with the Spirit, the good news was that they were now in the Kingdom of God, completely subject to Jesus Christ in the same way that the body was ruled over by the head.

In our day this is hard to understand and largely we have Lord Acton to blame. He is the author of that now famous statement "Power corrupts, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely." We've taken that to heart and decided that no one - not even God! - should be entrusted with absolute power. A second problem is that we have no human models of truly righteous sovereignty. No man has ever possessed the attributes of absolute power and infinite righteousness. Given this, we have a very hard time imagining how this combination looks, even when Scriptures present it boldly in the nature of God.

And so the question is this: what do we do when our natural inclinations are at odds with God's Word? What are we to do when what we believe deeply conflicts what what the Scriptures command us to believe? This first chapter of Ephesians has tested this all along. We've been told that God chose some in Christ for salvation before time even began. We been told that our salvation was not effected because of things we could do, but completely because of what Christ has done. Furthermore Paul has not stopped to defend these concepts a though they would be offensive; on the contrary, he apparently is listing these and other facts of God's gracious rescue of sinners as though we ought to be rejoicing in them. Paul certainly is asking us to realign our natural inclinations about fairness and democracy with the sovereign actions of our God who always does what is best and right.

So what does Paul want us to take away from these concluding verses in Ephesians 1? Just this: It is a grand privilege to be in the body over which Christ is the Head. There is great protection here, and even greater provision. To be under the sovereign rule of Christ is to be plucked out of the domain of darkness and transferred into the Kingdom of the Beloved Son (Colossians 1:13,14). To be under the feet of Jesus Christ, God's King, is to be in the greatest place of blessing, as power and knowledge and love and faith flow down, through the Spirit, to nourish and mature our souls. Stay close, stay submitted, and stay thankful.

Hope this helps,

David