The body of believers, the church, in Ephesus is in the unique position of having letters to them from two separate writers. While Paul wrote multiple times, at least twice possibly more, to the churches in Corinth and Thessalonica, Ephesus received a letter from Paul and, via John, from Christ. This does not make the church more important than any other, but it does suggest that we should take note of what has happened within the body to require Jesus to speak His message to the believers in Ephesus.
The Book of Acts recounts the turbulent birth of the church in Ephesus, a major cult centre for the worship of the moon goddess Diana (or Artemis). The Good News proclaimed by Paul, with its turning from idols, so challenged the status quo that the silversmiths, who made a nice income from the making and selling of effigies of Diana, reacted by rioting and declaring “Great is Diana of the Ephesians”. Rather than the March for Jesus that many cities saw through-out the 1990s, this march for Diana would not have been pleasant to experience. Amongst Diana’s priests were the Inanna, men whose gender had been changed by the goddess so that they were females, who dressed in the religious robes of priestesses. As a fertility goddess, linked to Asherah, Ishtar and Isis, the worship of Diana would have included homosexual behaviour, heterosexual intercourse, parading naked, and celebrating sexual sin. It was against this pride march that the church was born, and the judge refused to side with the pagans and declare Christianity as illegal. So big was the backlash that Paul, despite successfully bringing the Gospel to the city, had to flee through Berea to Athens before heading to Corinth. But while Paul had left Ephesus, his heart was for a city that he would visit twice more and would write to. It was to this church that Paul explained the importance of Apostles, Prophets, Teachers, Pastors, and Evangelists. It was to the Ephesians that Paul, recognising the power of the idol Diana and the demonic spirits worship by the cult of the goddess, explained the hierarchy of principalities and powers, and explained the importance of being constantly clothed in Christ through the armour of God. It was also to this church that Paul sent his son in the faith Timothy to minister and to build, setting up a governmental structure of elders and deacons. This city continued to be so important that centuries later the church would gather for synods, for governmental meetings to discuss theology and to tackle heresies.
We can see from Christ’s words to the Ephesians that they took the teachings of Paul seriously. Jesus commends the Ephesians for testing those who claim to be Apostles and refusing to follow those who are shown to be false. The Ephesians recognised the fundamental importance of Apostles to set the direction. They recognised that if the foundation was false then anything built would not stand. Understanding the truth that Jesus taught of being able to tell someone by their fruits, the Ephesians examined what fruit. the “Apostle” bore and dealt with them accordingly. But there was a problem. In all their good deeds their passion for Jesus had dimmed, they had forgotten their first love – the Bridegroom they were the bride of.
Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus may be well known for its reference to the armour of God, but the letter is one of love. Some authors on the prophetic have suggested that John was the Apostle who survived the persecution of Christians because he, unlike Paul and the others, truly understood about the love of God. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians put pay to this mistake as, from the opening blessing, Paul calls the believers to focus on the love of God and from that to love for each other.
After his customary, and heartfelt, blessing to the believers (Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ) Paul speaks of the blessings for believers because of what Christ has done with us. Paul declares “In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved” (verses 4 to 6). Notice the words Paul uses – love, adoption, blessed us. In these words, Paul is declaring the love of God as clearly as John does.
Paul does not stop there but continues, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us” (6-8). When we hear the word lavish we think of an amazing party, wedding, or banquet where no expense has been spared on food, drink, entertainment, or clothes. And this is what God has done, no expense was too high to bring us into relationship with him. Our word lavish comes from the old French word lavesse or lavache, meaning a deluge of rain. The root being the Latin word lavere meaning to wash. The idea of lavesse/lavache is such a downpouring of water that the ground cannot soak it in fast enough. Paul recognises this and starts his epistle by reminding the Ephesians of the boundless love God has for them, the outpouring of love that God has done through the sacrifice of His son and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Paul then speaks of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, as God’s seal – that God with us as the Paraclete is the promise of our inheritance. If you look at a five-pound note, or five-dollar bill, you will see the promise from the head of a bank about the value of that piece of paper. This is an image of what and who is the Holy Spirit to us. Just as we have the promise that the piece of paper in our pockets is worth something and can be redeemed so the Holy Spirit is the promise of God’s power at work in our lives, the promise of the inheritance that is ours when we see God in his glory, and is the promise of God’s kingdom both now and in the future. Just a Peter declared the “Last Days” through the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost so the Holy Spirit is the now and soon of the Kingdom of God being seen in the earth.
Having spoken of the love of God and our inheritance Paul then prays for the Ephesians to know this reality in a deeper way. Paul states that he prays the “eyes of the heart” of the Ephesians would be enlightened so that they would be able to see not only the “riches of his glorious inheritance” but also “the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe”. This is not a “isn’t it wonderful how God loves us” wishy-washy faith but one that expects and longs to see God at work amongst and through the believers. It is in this context of God’s lover and power that we get the first reference to powers and dominions. These authorities, powers, and dominions – both earthly and spiritual – are under Christ’s feet as a direct result of the price paid through the death and resurrection of Christ on the Cross. Yes, these were under Christ’s authority because he is God, but Paul tells us that God’s love not only has placed these things under Christ’s authority but done so in doing so Christ would be gifted to the Church as its head – as the one in who it finds it authority and name. Love – the love of God to us and as an example of how we are to love others is central to the Letter to the Ephesians. The only reason, Paul tells us, with have spiritual authority is because of our relationship with Christ. This echoes the wonderful section on spiritual gifts in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians where his treatise on love sits between his teaching on the gifts and on how to use those gifts wisely. Without love our authority is stale and hollow. Whether it is explaining why God has abolished the law of commandments, because of the “great love with which he has loved us” so that we are saved by grace and not by work, calling husbands to love their wives “as Christ loves the church”, or calling us to walk in the light and not do the things that the Gentiles do (including sexual immorality, and covetousness) we are to do this because of the love of God towards us, our love towards the one who first loved us, and towards each other.
Paul does not just tell us to love but tells us to walk in holiness. Chapter 5 verse 8 tells us to walk as children of the light. Verse 11 is even stronger “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness but expose them”. Rather than, as the hyper-grace movement would tell us, ignoring sin (as it is already forgiven, and covered by grace, so we waste our time repenting of it and can carry on acting in such a way) Paul tells us not to continue to act in this way, and not to allow others to walk in this way unchallenged. If we truly love God and want to love God because he loved us we will not cheapen his grace by mistreating it. There is a danger in the prophetic movement that we do not speak words of correction, but Paul states that we must do just that. We must expose the works of darkness so that “Christ can shine” His light into the dark places of the human heart and of the world. We must not Bowdlerise the prophetic by silencing words of correction and words of judgement, yes, we must not rush to speak them but if God commands us to speak them then we must be obedient.
This danger of ignoring sin is coupled with the danger of not testing prophecies, prophets or apostles. Paul tells us twice to test prophecy (1 Corinthians 14:29, 1 Thessalonians 5:20). The language of the words in 1 Thessalonians 5 suggest that not testing prophecy is one way to quench the moving of the Holy Spirit – that not handling the gifts properly will lead the blessing to depart. John is even more explicit – that we are to test prophecies, and the spirits that people speak them in, because there are false prophets about (1 John 4:4). This though was not the issue that Jesus wanted to challenge the Ephesians about. They were testing. The Ephesians were watching the fruit of the “apostle”, of the “prophet” so that those who claimed to be and were not could not do any damage – but they had focused so much on this they had become legalistic and forgotten to love.
If we are more interested in the size of our ministry, if we want the adulation of the conference attendees to us on the platform, we put on conferences because we don’t want to let people down despite God not calling us to do so then – like the Ephesians – we have forgotten our first love. We have become so caught up in the process that we no longer have the passion of Christ burning in us to see His kingdom come. Like the Ephesians we need to “remember the love of our youth” and return to Him who first loved.
But it was not all bad for the Ephesians. Remember Jesus commended them on their faithfulness in testing. He also commends them for hating the cult of the Nicolaitans, a group who taught that because we are saved, we are under grace, then we don’t need to worry about our behaviour, whose teaching He also hates. But this is not enough. If we do not also have love then the lampstand, which is an image of God’s presence, will disappear. This is a devastating outcome, that we can go through the process but no longer have God’s presence or blessing. How deeply then must we be willing to love.
The promise Jesus holds out to those who do repent, and overcome this issue, takes us back to the Fall of Adam and Eve. When God banishes Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden after they have rebelled and eaten the “fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” He explains His actions in these words “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he stretches out his hand and take also of the tree of life and live for ever”. Mankind has not only been banished from Eden and cursed to a life of toil until they die, they have been banished from God’s presence. God walked in the Garden of Eden and communed with Adam and Eve. No longer could this happen. But Jesus not only offers eternal life, He promises that again God will walk with and commune with those who love as God loves us and who bring light into the darkness, even exposing the behaviour of those who live in darkness.