Ephesians 1:1-14

Ephesians 1:1-14

Paul's letter to the Ephesians is a dynamo of truth and application. If Romans is Paul's systematic theology, then we might call Ephesians his explosive theology. While less orderly, it explodes from Paul's love for the gospel and the audience. Sometimes digressing, sometimes leaping forward, but always exalting the gospel. In fact, Ephesians 1:3-14 is actually one excited sentence that poured off of Paul's pen. In English we have broken it up, but for Paul it was one breathless race toward the conclusion in verse 14: “to the praise of His glory.” It would be a great thing to study in detail every verse and every word of the sentence and book, but for our purposes we will look at two words that can shape us as disciples.

In verse 4 Paul says that we should be “holy and blameless” before God. God’s intention for us from before the beginning of time is that we would be holy and blameless. We must avoid two mistakes as we consider being holy and blameless. The first is to say, “I am forgiven; that makes me perfect, so check that box off.” While that is true, it misses the point Paul is making. The second mistake we might make is to say, “I can't do that, so why even try?” Both of these stem from a misunderstanding of the words holy and blameless. The word holy means different or separate. The temple was holy because it had a different purpose. The Sabbath was holy because it was set apart and different from other days. God is holy because He is completely different from all else. We are to be holy, which is different from other people because we are set apart for God. To be a holy person does not mean that God wants us out of our community to be a monk in the desert. Rather, we are different in our world, a difference that should be obvious.

The second word in this couplet, “blameless,” is not well understood. We think of the word meaning having never done anything wrong. That kind of person would certainly be blameless, but that is not what we are looking at here. The word literally means “no blemish” and was the requirement for a sacrificial animal. A blemish is that which spoils the reputation or causes the blame. Blameless is descriptive of a pattern of life. It is one thing to say something sharp once but different to have a consistently sharp tongue with everyone. Blameless or unblemished describes the person who is not hiding a pattern of consistent sin. The point here is being the real deal. The absence, complete absence, of sin in our lives is the goal; “holy and blameless” is descriptive of the journey we walk by grace to get to being the real deal.

“Lord, help me to be holy and blameless.  AMEN”